Get This Party Started
by Purple Mongoose
Summary: [One Piece/Sailor Moon] When Minako’s plan for a relaxing evening after defeating the universe’s greatest evil involved a nightclub, Ami was by no means expecting to actually enjoy herself! [On Hold]
1. Party

Get This Party Started

by Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease

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**Crossover: **The first part of a remarkably short series I plan for only eight chapters, possibly, if I get feedback asking for it.  It's also another One Piece/Sailor Moon crossover, and yet again, one focusing on Ami (next month: Makoto!  *winks*) – but instead of Zoro, I picked Sanji (who I would _love _to see flirting with Ami, especially considering how shy she is, and how big of a flatterer he is).  Now!  If you have been reading Viz's (admittedly quick and fun) translation in Shonen Jump, they've just finished translating the entirety of the first OP volume.  Sanji (the 'love cook,' natch) doesn't make his appearance until the fifth volume, but I truly don't have the patience to wait that long!  :[  Thusly, check out Lyn's for character info and whatnot, as well as nifty character sketches from the anime artbook/sketchbook.  (I'll try to see if I can list the sketches as well as some other pics after the story – if not, I'll have to review my own story with them.  *sweatdrops*)  

**Sanji: **For those who don't want to check out websites and whatnot…Sanji is a very tall man, and a thin one at that, with short blonde hair styled to lay flat (with bangs hanging over his left eye).  Interesting to note is the fact that he has extremely curly eyebrows (or so it would seem, as no one can actually see the left side of his face for the most part), as well as a habit of chain-smoking and wearing carefully chosen outfits.  He usually can be seen wearing a blue pinstripe button-up under a black suit (with gold buttons, no less!) and an impeccable tie.  As for personality…Sanji is a sucker for women.  He flatters women constantly, willingly subjugates himself to serving them without a second thought, and is probably the only character in OP who obviously wants something more than friendship with the various female characters.  However, he has a penchant for swearing a blue streak and beating the crap out of people he decides he doesn't like – usually other guys.  He acts like an unruly teenager (although, at the risk of spoiling events later in the series, he proves himself completely capable of an almost sadistic 'adult' persona, which involves meticulous planning, actions, and so forth), basically.  

**Continuity: **After SMStars, for sure, and I think it's a mixture of the anime and the manga in my mind, knowing how I work and whatnot.  As for One Piece, there is no continuity whatsoever – OP doesn't take place in the modern world and all, which makes it easier for those who have no idea who Sanji is.  

**Other: **Was this rambling unnecessary?  Most likely.  ;]

**Summary: **[One Piece/Sailor Moon] When Minako's plan for a relaxing evening after defeating the universe's greatest evil involved a nightclub, Ami was by no means expecting to actually enjoy herself!  

**Warning: **Nothin' but plotless romance here, folks.  It's not even a well-written plotless romance.  But, hey, it could be worse – I might've written smut.  There might even be smut in later parts!  Oh, glory!  _The sheer, unadulterated horror!  _*grins*

--

--

_Get this party started on a Saturday night_

_Everybody's waiting for me to arrive_

_Sending out the message to all of my friends_

_We'll be looking flashy in my Mercedes Benz_

_I got lots of style like my gold diamond rings_

_I can go for miles if you know what I mean_

_I'm coming out so you better get this party started…_

-Pink, _'Get This Party Started'_

--

--

        "It'll be fun," Minako promised devoutly, crossing her chest quickly with sketching motions that did little to reassure the smaller girl.  "I mean, geez, we did just defeat the spookiest," she crooked her fingers and pursed her mouth into an 'o' to best suit her words, "baddie in the entire universe!"  Instantly, she had straightened, smoothing the long waterfall of her bright gold hair where it tumbled down her back, exposed by the mini-dress that laced up the bottom half of her spine.  "Besides," she continued aloofly as Makoto checked her dark green lipstick and rolled her eyes to the amusement of the others, "I am in serious needing of a boyfriend."

        "You always need a boyfriend," Makoto retorted, shaking up the dark red curls of her thick auburn hair and winking at Ami, who absently checked the enveloping neck of her modest dress.  "Although, that isn't to say I can't understand the emotion," and she poked Minako in the shoulder.  The blonde stuck her tongue out rudely and tossed open the door of her bedroom, motioning for the other two girls to leave before her.  

        "Artemis," spoke the self-styled goddess of love in a mock-stern voice, waggling her finger at the pure white cat lazily sprawled over her bedspread, "we're trusting you to hold the fort for us.  Everyone's not-flashy-dress clothes are in my room, and that means no evil people can break in!"  As she moved to follow laughing Makoto and blushing Ami, she paused, swiveling on her arched orange heel and ordering, "And no peeking at our girlish delicates!"

        "Minako!" Ami gasped in horror as she tugged the door shut, a smug grin on her blue-eyed face.  "That's a horrible thing to say!  Artemis would never do such a thing."

        "Can't be too sure," Minako shrugged in eloquent reply, checking the stylish swing of her purse against hip, the strap wrapped cutely over her bared shoulder.  "Henshin wands, all?  No sense in having phenomenal powers if we can't remember our sticks of relative mass destruction."  She flipped open the tucked flap of her purse to reveal the peeking star of her sun-bright transformation device, eyes flicking down the sides of the upper hallway to ensure her parents were not in sight.

        Makoto lifted her leg back, developed calf pressing gently against her muscled thigh, and patted with a smile her black ankle boot, slipping her finger and thumb inside it to reveal an inner pocket holding her green stick.  "I had these boots in my closet for a few years," she explained, dropping her foot back to the floor and stamping it idly to shake the stick into a more comfortable position, "and it crossed my mind that it might be easier than dragging along a purse everywhere I go." 

        Both turned to look at Ami, and the blue-haired girl, absently tucking a strand of her bobbed hair behind the pale shell of her ear, all but squirmed under their gaze.  "Well," she hesitated, drawing the word out and quickly twisting her head around to check for adults, just as Minako had.  Biting her lip and looking as if she was about to have a coronary, to judge by the redness in her face, she grasped the stretchy fabric of the turtleneck and pulled sharply, exposing her neck.  She angled down a little and gave them the briefest glimpse of a grey sports bra, an odd cylinder attached to the inside of it, and then yanked the neck back up, her face flamboyantly crimson under her dark hair. 

        "A-mi!" Minako gasped, clapping in wild teasing as Makoto blinked, trying to figure out what exactly had just occurred.

        "It's a sort of bra sold in America," the smallest of the trio muttered, tugging down on her ruffled blue skirt and scraping one of her blue pumps across her pantyhose-clad leg.  "It comes with a loop inside the bra that holds a can of pepper spray or the like, for self-defense.  Mom bought me one at her last conference, as a joke of some indecipherable sort, and I tried it out the last time we had to fight someone after Chaos was defeated."  At the matching grins the other girls granted her, she huffed and crossed her arms over her chest in her protectively icy pose of intelligence, tacking on, "It works quite well!"

        "That would explain why you were the first to get in uniform," Makoto mused, and Minako grabbed both their wrists, tugging them down the stairs with happily pounding steps.  "Minako, we aren't going to be late, you know!"  
        "And we need to study, anyway!" added Ami, her cheeks still tousled into a light pink as she popped open the back door of the small faded car Makoto professed to owning.  The tall, willowy young woman, green dress flouncing slightly and flashing the smallest bit of her upper thigh as she slid into the driver's seat, snorted with deep meaning.  Knowing very well what it was meant to signify, she sighed in the back and settled for picking at nonexistent lint on her smooth dress, sleeveless top clinging uncomfortably to her curves and showing a bit more arm than she wanted it to.

        "Studying is for losers!" Minako yelled in the passenger seat on the left, up front, flipping the radio on and sticking one of her English compact discs into the waiting slot as Makoto groaned.  "What?" she defended.  "So I'm bilingual!  It's a fun disc, Jupiter, so just let the music groove over you."  Her speech dissolved into an off-key singing of the song pouring from the speakers.

        "Beautiful," Makoto grumped, putting the car in reverse and carefully making her way out of the driveway.  "Just try to avoid singing publicly at Party's Club, okay?  I don't feel like seppuku tonight, just so you're aware of it."

        "And let's all pray no unnamed evil of horrific proportions doesn't interrupt us," Ami commented wryly in the back, resigning herself with a frown to a Friday night spent at the club Minako routinely visited.

--

        She refused to admit it to any of the girls surrounding her, but she loathed the chaos and pounding noise the club seemed to adopt according to some unspoken laws.  The strobing lights, flashing brilliant waves of blue and green ensued dedicatedly by fiery tones, did little to dissuade her pounding headache and so she nursed a small bottle of crystalline water in her hands.  Miserable, she wondered what had possessed her to even remotely think of agreeing, much less not bringing a novel or textbook of some sort to whittle away what time she could.  Ami sighed to herself, twisting the white cap from the bottle and setting it gently onto the glistening obsidian table, and lifted the mouth of it to her lips, sipping at the cooled, artificially flavored water.  The unwanted taste of synthetic apples filled her mouth and she grimaced, pushing it down her throat and away from her tongue, where it offended her senses greatly.

        A small hand, familiar for its congenial gentility and warm grip, tapped her shoulder and she turned slightly to see the silver-gold girl that was everyone's closest friend.  "Ami, Ami, Ami!" chirped Usagi in her brightest tone, wrapping the quieter girl in a sweet hug that was both tender and surprisingly strong.  Whispering into her ear, cheerful voice softening just a bit into a questioning concern, "Are you having fun at all?"  She turned and smiled encouragingly at the gregarious blonde, nodding with a falsely happy expression, and the princess subsided, though her slender eyebrows were still worked together in restrained worry.  "If you say so, Ami," Usagi relented, and then she was being tugged into a quick kiss at Mamoru's hands.  "Mamo!" she squealed, returning to her usual brilliant self, and she kissed him back.

        Watching the exchange with a saddening look, Ami glanced down at her hands, spreading the dainty fingers out over the smooth surface and feeling an embarrassing longing for a relationship akin to those she saw near constantly.  Michiru and Haruka, though not present at the time being due to a promised romantic evening together, were just as much proof of the ties lasting affection could bring, as in place as that of their prince and princess.  "How very silly of me," Ami murmured, and she found she could laugh at her own thoughts.  "I am far too busy with schoolwork, in any case," she dismissed, citing the same excuse both she and Urawa Ryo had used to maintain their friendship outside of a foregone romance.  

        "Drinkage is disturbingly low!" cried Minako on the other side of the semicircle booth they had chosen, lifting her crystal glass and glaring with a comic expression at the tiny slip of nonalcoholic drink shifting at the bottom.  Beside her, a somewhat surly Rei echoed the sentiment, her own glass having been drained at an earlier point as Makoto vanished into the dancing; they had yet to see the strongest one of their group make her way back.  "Ami!" she spotted her, offering a whimsical smile and motioning to the empty bottle of sparkling white juice.  "Could you go ask the man at the bar," she jabbed her index finger at the large rectangular bar erected on the opposite side of the innumerably vast dance floor, their own booth one of the many lining the wall near the entrance, "for another thing of bubbly?"

        "I'm not sure you need anymore," Mamoru said in dry jest only friends could make, and Usagi punched him playfully in the chest, earning another casual smooch for herself.  "My apologies, Usako," he spoke petulantly, brushing his lips over her forehead.  She promptly giggled and cuddled closer to her boyfriend of the past four years, snuggling his arm tightly to her body.

        "Of course, Minako," Ami smiled pleasantly, taking the small _Frequent Clubber! _card Minako immediately stuck out for her to grab.  "I'll be just a moment," she continued, sidling out of the booth and smoothing out her knee-length skirt, nervously pushing strands of hair behind her ears once more.  

        Making her way along the outside of the dance floor, keeping to the over-peopled booths and apologizing quietly when she nearly knocked into a man carrying several glasses, she averted her eyes from the frantic dancing on the lit floor.  Nothing made her feel half as uncomfortable as the proximity many of the teenagers adopted with one another, causing her to blush and work her fingers together as if to protect herself from their motions.  A part of her felt an envy that they could be so openly affectionate, if not sexual, with each other, whereas the majority of her was irritated and made upset by it all, and so she sidestepped a flushed young man approaching her.  If he wanted to dance with her, she hurried her steps as she approached the swinging glass doors that led the night sky outside into the darker world within, he most certainly would not have that pleasure!  

        Imagining the teasing words her friends would share with her if they knew she was too shy to dance, she lowered her head briefly, keeping safely away from the dancers who might drag her into their sinful deluges.  Thusly, she did not notice the man who had opted to stop walking in the entrance, paused on the invisible line that separated club from hall, until she spotted perfectly shined black shoes right before she knocked into him.  She considered briefly the horrible ironies of her life as she heard a masculine, startled exhale, and her fingers reached up, hooking around the first thing they brushed.  The lumped knot of a tie was tugged down as she plummeted inevitably to the floor, a pair of long hands desperately catching her, one enveloping her waist and the other clasping the back of her head in unconscious protection.  "Oh, God," she heard herself whisper in a nearly voiceless speech, "I'd like it if a daemon would attack mass innocents around this moment, please."

        A slightly choked sound from above broke her pleas for improbably exit, and she blinked, realizing her face was being pushed into a fold of black cloth that seemed to be sheltering a long body.  The passage of a few more seconds heralded the further epiphany of knowing she was grasping a tie in a death grip, pulling it down with her limp weight and white-knuckled grasp.  With a mortifying squeak, she pulled away, releasing the tie and managing to balance herself on her feet, the fingertips of a foreign person still touching her hip in absent forgetfulness.  "I am very sorry," she forced out, trying to remind her brain that breathing was a good thing.  "I truly didn't mean to hurt you."

        Glancing up through her dark bangs, rolling her lips in to smack them anxiously and letting them fall back into her usual expression, she saw the top of a silky gold head and blinked.  The man was bending his neck forward, fingers hidden by his chin as he fixed the tie with one hand, and she felt the fingers on her hip pull away.  Another sunburst of rosy color tinted her cheeks and she was contemplating whether or not to apologize further when he looked up, lean fingers picking expertly at the redone knot of his freshly tightened tie.  "Gurk," she commented wisely, in the manner only she seemed to possess amongst her circle of friends, and she felt a bit idiotic as she stood woodenly on the floor.

        He was taller than anyone else she knew, even more so than Makoto, who nearly dwarfed Haruka and Mamoru, and he was impossibly thin, a sort of lean state of grace thrown off-balance by his almost imperceptible slouch and the downy hairs on his chin.  A pleasantly interested flicker passed over his decisively european features, one ridiculously curly eyebrow arching up before nestling back down over a heavy-lidded blue eye, its partner obscured by the sheaths of gold over his left eye.  "Doth my eyes deceive me?" he said in a honey tenor, hardly accented Japanese with a laughing undertone creasing it as he took a step back and swept into an unexpected bow.  Ami felt her face verge on volcanic proportions of scarlet.  "Or did I manage to catch a falling angel?"  

        The slender man straightened into a posture that still held his head far above hers, and she noticed the faint, undesirable smell of nicotine-laced smoke, undoubtedly spawned from the narrow cigarette dangling from his thin lips.  "My deepest, sincerest apologies in tripping up such a lady as your self," he added, a purposefully innocent smile on his face that fooled her for not a second.  

        "N-no," she finally managed to squeeze out from between her lips, checking to ensure she still held Minako's card in her hand; it was present, but dangerously close to slipping from her fingers to the floor.  "Okay," she said in singularity, wishing with deep hope that the dance floor would split open and serve as distraction enough to slip away.  She had absolutely no idea whatsoever how to deal with any man who did not sport glasses, hefty books, or alien super powers, and the only plan she could bring to mind was the most primitive: run like hell in the opposite direction.  It was quick becoming the friendliest of her limited options what with the odd sense of tingling in her body, the way the man was smiling at her with obvious, inexplicable attraction, and she moved to take a hasty retreat back to the table.  She figured she could claim the bar was out of the bubbly, as so proclaimed by Minako, but a firm grip around her small wrist stalled her motions.

        "Dance with me," the man suggested, and before she had time to do much else but glance, horrified, at the many heinous examples of dirty dancing on the strobed floor, she was swirled out to the floor.  "I can assure you I'm not half as indecent or as plague-ridden as your face might suppose," he smiled, a gleaming exposure of a slender whitened spot of teeth, the cigarette still clenched in his lips.  It might have been soothing to see his friendly expression had it not been for the sly twist at the corners of his mouth, like that of a sneaking feline or a fox, and she prayed harder than ever before in her life for something, anything.  "I am Sanji," he informed her, and she dimly recognized she was nodding and smiling in reply, having apparently struck some form of automatic response.

        What was even more surprising was that he was dipping her in a smooth, practiced curve to the floor, in a manner that was better suited for fancier locations.  "I am Mizuno Ami," she replied, her cheeks stinging with soft rose shades.  All right, so it was not quite half as unpleasant as she had expected, but she assumed her gradual change in judgment was due more to the fact that he was not leading her in a dance such as those around them.

        "Beautiful water!  How very fitting," he crowed, surprising her, and she noted they were twisting further into the beating core of the crushing bodies shimmying about.  He caught the small of her back with his open palm, dipping her once more as the stretching motion tugged her skirt just a bit up her thighs, and he snapped her back up, her arm clenching around his shoulder to balance her weight out.  "Divinely fitting, if I might be so aggressive as to say," he winked his one visible eye at her in a warmly flirtatious manner, and she felt her stomach clench, her cheeks reddening fractionally deeper than before.  "Oh, be careful, spiral," and she was twisted into a curl, skirt fluttering up as a twining fairy's cap and showing her curved legs, his long fingers woven into her smaller ones.  "Perfect!" he cheered, the innocent smile slowly falling to the heels of a marginally darker one.

        Against her will, Ami laughed, pulled by his arm into a returning spiral that ended with her being clasped to his chest.  "I wasn't expecting to dance like this," she confessed, turning her neck just so to tilt her head back, peering behind her smile at his face, his own smile wider at one end than the other.  "At least," she hastened to continue, "not in a place like this."  She bowed her head in reference to a pair of teenagers almost passing beyond dancing with their closeness to one another, closing her eyes briefly to rid herself of the image as he slipped her about to face him again.  "How embarrassing," she murmured and she heard him laugh.

        "Well, if you feel more inclined to such dancing," he left the sentence hanging suggestively, his curled eyebrow somehow conveying a provocative message.  

        "Um," she answered sagely, feeling as if perhaps her face just might burst straight into flames at some point over the course of the evening.  "I, um, don't think so," she ducked her face, just as he tugged her to him so as to keep her from being bumped by a stumbling girl, and thusly ended with her cheek being pushed flat against his chest.  "Eep," she heard her voice mumble.

        "I don't think we know each other well enough yet," he added, and she pulled back, turning a reddish color for the countless time thus far.  "I jest, I jest," he comforted, rolling the cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other with a twist of his tongue, and for some reason she felt the tingling get a bit stronger.  "Kick your legs," he said absently, hands sliding from her hand and shoulder to wrap about her waist and tossing her up.  Shocked, Ami could do nothing else but kick her legs to the side flashily, almost embarrassingly exotically, and his own cheeks were spattered with a butterfly speckling of pink.  

        He dropped her to the ground gently, hands loosening their tight grip around her waist, fingertips brushing a little lower to cascade briefly along her hips, and she stuttered out, eyes riveted to the face of this foreign man she had only just met, "I need to get a bottle at the bar for my friends."

        "Uh huh," he nodded, one of his hands abandoning her hip to grasp his cigarette with two fingers, plucking it from his mouth as he licked his lips nervously.

        "Because," dear Lord, she was babbling, and why was she feeling simultaneously excited and nervous, "they're quite thirsty, and that's why I was walking along the booths, you understand."  

        "Absolutely," he concurred, the hand clutching his cigarette smoothing over her shoulder, gripping the upper part of her bare arm.  "Without a doubt, I understand."

        "So I think I ought to go, now, before they start wondering, since I wasn't expecting to dance in any case."  She stared up at him, and was for some reason not duly startled or frightened, not even overwhelmingly _freaked out_ as Minako would put it, when he lowered his head, back bending to shorten the height distance.

        As the pleasant feel of slightly chapped lips, a small breath of smoke audible, touched her mind briefly, the hand on her arm tightening into a gentle clamp, she had presence of mind to consider this was a bit more fun than dancing with Makoto.  Even when he took his hand away to drop the cigarette and crush it under his large polished shoe, deepening the kiss with a girl he did not truly know, she only felt a small fraction of nervous hesitation within herself.  After a few moments, he took himself away from her, and they stared at one another, both flushed and suddenly shy, and then he bowed his head, stammering, "Sorry, sorry, I'm an ass."

        He turned and disappeared into the crowd, merging into the shadowing grip of the hundreds dancing in a collective dance, and she realized, dimly, she had dropped Minako's card at some point.

--

--

**Notes: **See?  Me no write plot.  ;]  I apologize to those who are undoubtedly shocked that I'm writing something with absolutely no deeper meaning whatsoever, but, hey, I can't help it – I'm 15, my friend gave me some questionable Harlequin novels, and I had the worst idea in the world attack me.  Besides…I want to write something marginally smutty.  Maybe.  Just a bit?

**Feedback: **Very wanted.  After all, this could just be a one-shot for all you know, but if the masses ask for it, there might just be a continuation.

**Disclaimer: **Dirt poor!  Don't own 'em.  

**Call: **(555) 555-5555, just to see if it's actually a phone number.  Heck, I want to call one day to find out.


	2. Cowboy

Get This Party Started 

by Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease

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**Notes: **Ha!  See?  Some of you wanted me to continue!  I guess maybe I'm not going to be flogged for wanting to write kinda-sorta-smut.  Anyway…apparently, I forgot to write some of the addresses for Sanji pics.  Glorf – I'm an idiot, no?  Check out for some suit-ariffic black-and-white sketches, for several sketches of his facial expressions (many mood swings), then for a color pic from the planner (both are related to the anime, by the way, not the manga – in which he's even cooler).

**Sanji: ** Somehow this slipped my mind the first time around (ironically, actually, considering he's nearly constantly cooking), but Sanji also happens to be a chef.  Apparently, a pretty darn good one, too.  Additionally, Sanji has a particularly unique manner of fighting, as One Piece has a great deal of fighting in it – he kicks the ever-living tar out of bad guys.  Seriously, he never uses his hands (as what kind of chef would mar the hands he prepares food with?  So he puts it himself), and has kicks powerful enough to turn sand into rocks.  0o  (A funny review for the anime has a caption under a Sanji-kicks-ass-literally pic stating: Riverdance…only much, much more painful.)

**Time: **The evening after the first part!  And then the next day.  Mm-mm, skittle goodness.

**Continuity: **Yep.  Still following SMStars, with none for OP at all.  

**Other: **Romance!  Yes, there's more gooey romance shtuff coming up, with some kissing just to spice it all up.  After all, who's to say Ami isn't a closet wild woman?  (I know…she isn't.  *sweatdrops*)

**Summary: **[One Piece/Sailor Moon] When Minako's plan for a relaxing evening after defeating the universe's greatest evil involved a nightclub, Ami was by no means expecting to actually enjoy herself!

**Chapter: **Crown Parlor is hiring help, and Ami is stunned to learn the new cook is none other than the lanky man who wooed her at Party's Club.

**Pun: **Makino of One Piece worked at Party's Bar (she is seen in the first issue of OP, and a few cameos later in the series).  Nowadays bars are _always _included in a nightclub's design.  ;]

--

--

_I ain't straight outta Compton_

_I'm straight out the trailer_

_Cuss like a sailor_

_Drink like a mick_

_My only words of wisdom:_

_|_Radio Edit_|_

-Kid Rock, _'Cowboy'_

--

--

        "Thanks for inviting me over," Ami smiled quietly at the blonde currently embroiled with rubbing Artemis' upturned belly furiously.  A pillow was launched at the smartest of the three via Makoto's lazy motions, her long arms arching daintily as the fluffy makeshift weapon struck her forehead, and she squeaked, ducking back against the wall from her futon.  "Makoto!" she complained, holding two fingers to the injured spot and kicking limply the pillow back over the carpeting.  "That was rude!"

        "You sounded too surprised about sleeping over!" the much taller girl scolded, returning to setting up her previously rolled sleeping bag over the astonishingly clean floor.  "God, you always seem convinced we think you're a hopeless nerd.  Throw me my bag?"  She caught the make-up purse with little effort, sliding it beside her returned pillow and unzipping it in quest of a toothbrush to match the nearly empty tube of toothpaste she already had set out.  "Anyway, I met the cutest guy at the club," continued Makoto, and Minako, grinning, interrupted.

        "Did he look like your old boyfriend?" she asked cutely, scratching the loudly purring ivory feline under his nose as his tail lashed contentedly.  The girl with auburn hair granted her a dirty look, and she stuck her tongue out in rude response, scooping Artemis into her arms and plopping back onto the thin mattress of her single bed.  "No need to be that way," she shook her finger in mock-lecture, teasing her cat's ears with her fingertips and swishing his fur about in brief hurricane whorls.  

        Ami smiled again, content with simply listening to her two friends exchange trails of conversation, and she primly lifted herself onto her knees, tugging the stuffed quilt over the stiff flatness of her traveling futon.  Settling back a little, she smoothed out a wrinkle in her dark blue pajama bottoms, the warm flannel easily straightening under the pressure of her palms.  "Um, Minako," she started in a voice painted through with a meek restraint, as Makoto, satisfied, snatched up toiletries and cheerily announced she was to clean her mouth as per every night.

        Both girls made general piteous noises at the eldest one's departure and she merely laughed, waving dismissively at their affectionate teasing and disappearing on tiptoe into the hall so as to avoid the infamous wrath of Missus Aino.  Still broadly smiling, Minako, golden hair twisted over her shoulder in an informal braid, switched her gaze from doorway to Ami, who began to worry if perhaps she should not have drawn attention to herself.  "Yeah, Ami?" she asked, kicking her legs over the side of her cot and wiggling her toes energetically in the cool air conditioned atmosphere of her room.

        "Um," she found herself stumbling on her words, and she slowly dropped her eyes to fiddling her fingers and thumbs together in ever-shifting patterns, "I wanted to," she stammered, uttering the occasional _um_ and _well_ as she tried to figure out how best to put it.  "I enjoyed the club," she finally spat out, immediately clasping her hands together and ducking her chin to her collar as the soft skin of her cheeks reddened.

        "Really?" Minako demanded in breathlessly pleased surprise, leaning forward excitedly and wrinkling her nose as she considered the words and expression on her friend's face.  A thought occurred to her and she moved back again, patting Artemis' back in apologetic ruffling, a mischievous smile curving her full lips into a playful smirk that alarmed the smaller girl.  "Ami," she sang, fingers growing a little more thoughtlessly callous against her cat's alabaster fur, "you didn't happen to meet a boy there, did you?"  At the responding explosion of a blush and her frantic hiding of her face with small, pale hands, Minako launched backwards on her heels, rocking with the sheer delight.  "Oh my God!" she squealed, throwing her hands up from Artemis and clapping them to her cheeks as her smile threatened to crack her facial muscles.  "You did meet a guy!  Oh, was he cute?  Did he have a nice ass?"

        "Minako!" Ami cried, aghast, from the shelter of her connected palms, and she drew her knees up in awkward arches as if they might protect her further.  "That's a horrible thing to say!"  Artemis, growing annoyed with his mistress' frequent mood swings, leapt from the bed and stalked, nose daintily held in the air, to the relatively calmer feline lover.  "Hello, Artemis," she absently added, fitting her hands under his abdomen and easily moving him onto her lap; he rubbed his back against her ribs affectionately and, half-closing his eyes in smug triumph, purred softly while she stroked him with practiced expertise.  "Anyway, I didn't look at his," she hesitated, "natural anatomical features."

        Minako rolled her pale blue eyes expressively, hands wrapped over her knees, and spoke dryly, "Of course not.  I assume it was his rapier wit that appealed to you straight off?"

        The ensuing blush on the smaller girl's face more than answered it fully, and she continued to pet Artemis stately in spite of her own discomfort.  "Not entirely, no," she answered in a tiny voice, keeping her dark blue eyes firmly locked on one spot in the sandy carpeting.  "That is to say, I was impressed with his height right off, of course, what with him towering over me and all," she perceived dimly that it was highly possible she was babbling once more, as embarrassing as the flared redness in her cheeks, "and I didn't mean to imply he wasn't, ah, um…"  Her voice trailed off, entering the realm of things far too tender a subject to attempt vocalizing in a successful manner, to judge by her history of internalizing potentially mortifying emotions.

        "Physically endowed?" suggested Minako, kicking her bare foot from the delicate quilt covering her bed and grinning lasciviously.  "Was he so utterly sexy you fell deep into his rapturous spell, kinkily sating that grooving itch he placed upon your mind with the heights of fantastical desire?"

        Ami squeaked as she seemed oft to do, clapping her hands firmly over her face and shaking it rampantly from side to side, curling her toes into a smooth row of shells, and moaned, "Minako, that's a horrible thing to say!"  She tried for a glare, splitting two of her fingers from the rest and peeking with one large, indignant eye through the willful crack, and primly took her hands from her face, clasping them royally in her lap.  "As it was, I was quite in control of my own words and actions," she spoke stiffly, "and I would have returned very properly to the table had he not grasped my hands and taken me to the dance floor."

        The blonde made a soft, romantic sound, her facial expression twirling away from naughty mischief into a daydreaming stupor of misting eyes and a finger toying idyllically with a loose strand of her dark gold hair.  "He whisked you off into a beautiful dance, didn't he?" she sighed, pressing her hands together and sewing the fingers between one another as she drew her knees up to her chest, toes wrapping over the edge of the bed.  "Obviously, as you wouldn't dance otherwise," she said, then, in a response to her own inquiry as she gazed dreamily at the blank ceiling of her room.  

        "Oh, sweet love of life!" cried Minako loudly, startling Ami badly enough for her to jump a little, clasping her small hand to her breast, over the pounding beat of her heart.  Tossing her head back, the marginally taller girl threw her arms to the side, exposing the gold of her neck to the ceiling blindly observing them, and continued dramatically, "Bring thy chariot low and take me with thee upon your journey to the glowing starlight ever dreaming!  Take me, love, take me!"  She proceeded to make gushy sounds, hugging herself tightly as Ami blinked and laughed quietly, holding her fingertips over her mouth as if to hold it in, and Minako sighed a second time, lolling back to rest on her bed.  Turning onto her side, she drilled her fingers into the bedspread and raised an eyebrow at Artemis' pleased rumbling in the gentle warmth of Ami's daintily sprawled legs.

        "Artemis, shame," she mock-scolded, wagging her finger in a pretend gesture of exasperated maturity, and the white cat cocked his ears at her, lifting his head slightly to stare with unblinking azure eyes at her.

        "Minako," the cat said wearily in his light baritone voice, "I'm enjoying a moment of rare peace.  You really shouldn't be bothering Ami about such things, anyway.  She's probably the only one of you lot that's been focused enough on her duties to afford a fling."

        "Fling?" protested Minako.  "This could very well be her greatest, truest love, and," she launched to her feet, jabbing a finger triumphantly into the air as she struck a pose similar to that of Sailor V's more flashy ones, "I can't abide your words!  Never break the pure love of a young woman!"

        "Minako," Ami interjected weakly, smoothing her palm over the silky gentle ivory of Artemis' fur, "I really didn't even talk with him, other than finding out his name."  At Minako's intent gaze, slender eyebrows narrowing thoughtfully as she awaited the continuation, she hastened to add, "Oh, it's Sanji.  I think he might be a gaijin, though, as he had an American accent.  Not that I minded or anything."

        The same eerily thoughtful look on Minako's face took on the same decisively evil look it had before, her lips curling up into a wicked little smile as she studiously stepped off her bed, feet padding quietly over her carpeted floor as she strove to keep from making loud walking noises, so as to not aggravate her sleeping parents.  "Ami," she said cutely, plopping into a folded knees position, her lower legs folded under her waist, "he kissed you didn't he?"

        Meekly, knowing there was nothing she could do to avoid answering it truthfully, she confessed, "Yes?  Um, twice?"

        "Oh, my God!" Minako declared, crossing her eyes as she faked a heart attack.  "That is so not fair!  You get the cute foreign guy and two kisses on your first clubbing, and all I get is a lost card and no bubbly.  We have so got to tell Makoto, you do realize that, right?"

        "Tell me what?" asked Makoto congenially as she stepped with excellent timing into the room, her teeth sufficiently clean and toiletries clutched expertly in her fisted hand.  "So long as it isn't anything referring to whether or not the next vast evil has descended upon Tokyo, I'm game."  She bent over her handbag, tucking toothbrush, toothpaste, and hairbrush into the waiting plunged depths, wiggling the zipper shut with a sturdy tug at the end of the zipper's little tag.

        "Ami's got a boyfriend!" Minako told her.

        "What?" the auburn brunette choked, shocked enough to warrant her falling back onto her rear, forest green eyes widened into a size close to that of dinner plates as she switched her gaze from the brightly grinning blonde to the furiously blushing aqua-haired girl seated on her portable futon.  "Boyfriend?"

        "Minako!" Ami protested.  "That isn't what I said!"

        "Lordie, relax," Minako rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest and looking infinitely superior.  "Two kisses count as a boyfriend, in my book, and if he tongued you, then you're going steady."

        "It was one night!" she replied, face brilliant under her cloud of dark hair.

        "I'm confused," Makoto took need to inform them both.

--

        "Usagi and Mamoru are having an afternoon together," Minako explained as they paraded down the sidewalk, a trio of girls in a range of colors from dark forest shades to ocean twists and fiery explosions.  "And you know Rei: she's found something to do at the shrine.  Friends?  Bah humbug, not when she can train extensively in bizarre rituals."  The blonde cheerfully deposited her tinted sunglasses over her eyes, a trail of curled hair passing over her cheek where it had peeled free from her coiled bun, the locks pressed in iron curlers at some indistinguishable point last night when they had pressed Ami for details.  "Well, that's what she says, anyway, but I am of an opinion she's trying to tease poor Yuuichirou again.  Poor, poor lad, having to be in love with her."  She sighed pitifully, lowering her face and shaking her head.

        "He doesn't seem to be complaining," pointed out Makoto, even knocking her finger forward in example.  "In fact, he's all but willing to be her mindless love slave, as I'm sure you've noticed, Minako.  Hell, he'd probably cut his own eyes out if she asked him to."  She paused for reflection, curling her finger back to her palm as she stared blankly at the sky in thought, and then she slowly admitted, "If he has eyes, that is.  I can't remember ever seeing Yuuichirou's eyes.  Ever."

        Minako laughed and the two pulled just a bit away from Ami, unconsciously, and she stepped carefully to the side, wanting a moment of privacy for the echoes of her own thoughts as she caressed her hand over one of the many parking meters lining the road.  Freezing her legs, she faced the buildings lining the opposite side of the street, grasping her fingers almost desperately around the half-moon arch of the meter as she swayed slightly toward the pillared metal before her.  A blush, different from the wild ones that plagued her nearly every time she even entertained the thought of romance or men, prickled her cheeks with the faintest scattering of budding rose pink, and she bit her lip, dropping her face just a bit to fix her eyes on the curb.  Her slipper-sheathed feet were a dark blue on the curb's smooth, curved drop, and she shifted one of her feet, watching it with her matching eyes and lifting one of her hands to gingerly tuck a twining strand of hair behind the genteel swell of her ear. 

        I am being completely silly, she told herself with a squaring of her shoulders though her chin remained lowly dipped, thinking over some flirty guy at a nightclub.  It hardly mattered that he was her first kiss, much less the first guy who had ever done anything remotely provocative in any form whatsoever with her, even if it was in the form of a wink, a tilted eyebrow, and a mild nip at her mouth when he molded his lips to hers.  And what, precisely, had given him leave to do such a thing, she thought amidst a flare of stinging pride mingled with shame that she had given in so easily; caving in quickly to men was something that was most assuredly a Minako trait, and it was somehow both intriguing and frightening to accept she had done so.  

        Groaning quietly to herself, she drooped her shoulders, shrinking just an inch or so to bend her neck, resting her forehead on the lumps of her folded fingers as she exhaled deeply.  "He was a very good kisser, in any case," she murmured to her dark slippers, wrinkling her nose almost imperceptibly at the unusual words coming from her own shy mouth.  "At least, I think he was, seeing as I've never been kissed before."  She shuffled her feet, striking the cement sidewalk with the scuffed soles as she tapped her fingertips over the graved metal of the parking meter, and she drew in a deep, strengthening breath, raising her head and stroking her hands through her hair as she tapped her heels to the ground.  "Now, where did they go?" she asked softly, turning to see the duo of other girls waiting at the recognizable front of the Crown Parlor, their heads excitedly turned to one another.

        Pushing from her mind the image of Sanji, curled eyebrow tilted into a gentle expression and sighing gold hair passing over that pale blue eye undoubtedly hidden behind his carefully styled bangs, leaning down to her, pressing his mouth to hers and catching her lower lip in his mouth, she set off for her friends.

--

        "Minako!" Makoto hissed, grabbing her smaller friend's elbow and tugging her sharply to the widest window in the carefully maintained fore of the girls' favorite hangout, stalling their reluctant movements toward the library.  "Look!  Who do you see?"  She waited impatiently for Minako's answer, which was a dry listing of Motoki and his sister's names, as well as that of the husky young man who had currently taken up residence working in Crown Parlor, and shook her head widely, unable to still her broad grin.  "Look again," she said in a low voice, pointing into the store at a tall, thin masculine figure in a blue pinstripe shirt, tucked into black slacks, under a pinning white apron.  

        "Hey, he's cute," the blonde girl admitted, pinching her sunglasses a little lower on her nose so as to ogle him better.  "I particularly like those big feet of his," she continued with a sly grin.  "After all, you know what they say about men with big feet," she said airily, to Makoto's vast confusion, and she paused, a look of chagrined sweating crossing her features.  "Sorry, Western gag," she muttered.  "He's cute and all, but what's so special?  Motoki's much more drool-worthy muscular.  Mmm, Motoki, my lovely dollop."

        Makoto rolled her eyes in thick exasperation, and she poked her friend carelessly in the ribs, pointing at the man again as he turned slightly, picking at the cigarette in his mouth as he said something callous to an amused Motoki.  "Blonde hair," she prompted, "cigarette, extremely stylish, gentlemanly dressy outfit, and if you look closely, he's got an eyebrow that is really weird: see?  Massive curliness there, kinda like a corkscrew."

        Minako peered, squinting her eyes and slowly removing her sunglasses, folding them between her fingers as she stared at the tall blonde retreating toward the kitchen.  "Oh my freakin' God," she gasped in blatant delight.  "It's him!  Ami's mysterious clubber!  Good Lord, he is _tall_," she then gaped, raising her eyebrow in interested smirking.  "Ooo, he's absolutely perfect for our favorite little bookworm," as he sketched a flirtatious bow at a blushing female customer.  

        "I think we need to make a rest stop before studying," said Makoto very seriously, her eyes glinting with gleeful amusement.

        "Indeed-y deed," Minako grinned evilly right back.

        A set of hurried, careful footsteps broke into their guilty exchange, and they had damning expressions of being caught on their faces, ones they quickly, expertly, hid with bright, innocent smiles that should have alerted her to something being pointedly off.  She had a preoccupied appearance, though, did not seem to catch the dangerous warning signals screaming off her two friends, and offered them a thin smile at odds with the sad twist of pink on her cheeks.  A pair of particularly devious smiles were shared between the other two, and both girls lunged forward, each grabbing one of her hands and tugging her sternly to the swinging glass doors of the Crown Parlor.

        "I thought we were going to the library," she had presence of mind to argue when they easily dragged her through the doors, her slippers skating over the glossy tiles simply and lightly, "not the Crown Parlor!"

        "It's always hard to study on an empty stomach," spoke Makoto convincingly, sharing a brilliant smile as she tilted her head charmingly to one side, leaf eyes glittering in cheeky amusement under her wavy bangs.

        "And there's someone very interesting I think you might meet here," Minako winked in a quirky manner, her lips curving up sneakily, and she tucked Ami's arm in hers, leading her to the older blonde they had long known.  "Motoki," she greeted, "we were wondering if you could tell us about your new worker?  There's some mild interest amongst us," she knocked her head with a hinting grimace toward the utterly bewildered girl she and Makoto had pinned betwixt themselves, "as to who he is."

        "Oh," he smiled his usual comfortable smile, and he continued with great ease, setting his mop under his elbow as he reflected, "you mean the new cook and server, ah, how to say his name?  He's an American, so I suppose it would be…Brooks Sanji.  Or would it be Sanji Brooks?"  He frowned, considering it with great seriousness, and he shrugged, flipping the mop from beneath his elbow and swirling the dampened tendrils over the sparkling floor as though it needed it.  

        "Eat the damn food, asshole," a near-snarl sounded behind them and, as Ami tried to process what she had heard while simultaneously remember how to breathe, they turned about as one to see the man known as Sanji Brooks glowering threateningly down at a nasty-looking teenager with arm muscles thicker than the cook's neck.  "I made it, you paid for it, you will shittin' eat it.  Now."  His eyes flashed a promise of immense pain and ensuing agony, and the teenager looked fit to grab him around the neck and snap it between his two meaty hands.

        "Ami!" Minako bellowed pointedly and the blonde's eyes flickered to them as the girl with blue-shaded hair blanched, her face contorting into an anxious twist of horror and expectation.  "What do you want to eat?" she continued in a loud voice, as Makoto fisted her hand in her mouth, trying to quell her shaking laughter.

        "Oh, dear," Ami said faintly as Sanji straightened, a wide, flashing smile exposing rows of whitened teeth, the cigarette plucked from his lips by two curving fingers, and she swallowed thickly, having never learned at any point in her lifetime how to deal with unwanted confrontations.  The double m's were no help as both, in winsome synchronicity, stepped back thrice steps, looping their hands in back of their respective hips as they shared conniving smirks.

        Before she could stammer something fittingly goofy or ironically brainless, thereby ruining what little impression she had given him the night before, while mentally wondering if the ever-meddling specter of Queen Serenity had engineered this whole thing, he had swept up to her, one long arm catching her in the small of her back.  She made a soft, startled noise, and then he had her in a compromising position, his mouth firmly fitted over hers.

        In.  The.  Middle.  Of.  The.  Store!

        Ami came remarkably close to dying from the blood flow to her face.

--

--

**Notes: **Actually…that is a rather Sanji thing for him to do at the end.  After all, why use tact when he can just sweep her off her feet.  *snark*  In any case, I'm building up for plotless smut.  And then…I'll develop a plot.  *sighs*  My conscience will never let me live with myself, otherwise.

**Feedback: **I don't think this part was too bad…even though it could have been better.  What say the teeming (*cackles and falls off chair*) masses?  Continue?

**Disclaimer: **Don't make me cry.  *sobs*  You made me cry!

**Replies: **_Sadie Joyce – Myst Lady_, ah!  Your comments always make me feel so very special inside – as if I really can be a wonderful writer.  There are some very gifted writers out there, too, even if I haven't found any new ones by them lately.  *sighs*  Although, I very nearly dropped off the face of the planet before I started writing 'Requiem.'  _SailorPikaAngel_, I just finished the first part of 'Requiem: 10' (as it will be posted in four parts) – I'm especially pleased you like Duo/Ami.  I've actually been writing that pairing since way back in late spring of 2000, when GW first premiered on Cartoon Network…but I'm getting off topic.  Your review cracked me up.  *^.&*  I adore Sanji's pick-up lines (he's such a goof).  _BloodyVixen_, and yes, Minako is in this, as well as Makoto.  I suspect they will be joining Ami as the main focus in this story (what with the fact that Rei seems to be the second most popular crossover senshi and whatnot).  I'm considering a Zoro/Minako pairing, but it doesn't seem…right, somehow.  What was confusing?  *worries*  _Dee-Chan_, no worries!  If, by any chance, you have the opportunity, sasugabooks.com carries the One Piece series at about $5.50 a volume (a freakin' bargain, if you ask me), and they update their inventory quite frequently.  Everyone out there, check it out!  It's very worth it (and if I can get the link to work, there's a young man on-line who has some of the most accurate translations on the Internet, but his site has been down lately).  And, yes, the dance floor – so painfully true.  *grins*  _Devils Little Doll_, yes!  I was going for cute, very much so, and I'm pleased you enjoyed it.  Yay noodles!  *happy hippo dance*  Is this quick enough of an update?  Me hope so.  ;] 

_(This applies to all!)_  Do you have Shonen Jump #3?  If you flip through the interview with Eiichiro Oda at the beginning, it has two relatively small colored manga pics; the blonde guy in both is Sanji.  In Shonen Jump #4, if you look at the movie poster, the One Piece merchandise, and a different, smaller pic, again, the blonde guy in the blue-and-black combo is Sanji.  *waves happily*

In other news, I'm working on my ZoroxAmi fic, _Siren in the Deep_, after an unfortunate hiatus.  *sighs*  Must dedicate self further!  


	3. Miss

Get This Party Started 

by Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease

--

**Curses:  **Urgh!  Yet again, the site addresses weren't loaded.  Garfunkel, that makes me irritable.  Grr!  _o;  Behold my irritable face and quake in mindless fear before it!  ~0!  Uber-irritable face cannot be defeated, no matter what you try.  Mwahaha.  Right, okay, I'm marginally done being weird.  I'll have links to the pics up on my bio in a day or so, okay?  (With many apologies to Lyn's Kick Ass Sanji shrine for using them…sorry!  Sorry!  Sorry!  *bows repeatedly*)

**Sanji:  **He's a guy.  With practically no form of self-control/morals.  Fun!

**Day:  **Picking right up where the last part left off!  Sheesh, do you people really think I'm evil enough to skip to days later?

**Continuity:  **My general reaction to the idea of canon is something along the lines of, _what is this odd thing of which you speak?  _Nonetheless, I think it's after SMStars, with abso-posi-lutely no One Piece continuity in any form, manner, or whatever word that means the same thing as 'form' and 'manner.'

**Gobble:  **Beware rampant dirty jokes, a still-blushing Ami, Sanji in his perpetual state of flattery, and fun things like plotholes.  Mmm: plotholes are yummy.

**Summary:**  [One Piece/Sailor Moon] When Minako's plan for a relaxing evening after defeating the universe's greatest evil involved a nightclub, Ami was by no means expecting to actually enjoy herself!

**New:  **Following her unexpected third kiss in the past sixteen hours, Ami is nothing if not horribly mortified, while Sanji is somewhere on the opposite end of the spectrum.

--

--

You're not the only table turnin' tonight 

_Ya know the beat is pumpin' from inside_

_Put down your headphones and come dancing with me_

_Let the vinyl go free_

_She's got a groove that will make you feel funky_

_She's got a body you wanna take home_

_She licks the lips that you gotta know better_

_Hey Miss DJ, how do I get you alone?_

-Hall and Oates, _'Miss DJ'_

--

--

        The taste of cigarettes was strong and bitter, peeking through the faintest part of her mouth and swarming in with all its thick grandeur as his lower lip rolled over hers, mouth closing in an embrace of cloying, heady dried moistness around the startled curve of her own lip.  He was warm, his hand pressing with its open palm along the sensitive small of her back, and his lips were pleasantly damp; it was not half as undesirably moist as she might have feared it would be had she been given time to peruse the subject before he grabbed her and proceeded to kiss her with remarkable abandon.  A foreign brush of teeth swept across the expanse of her captured lip and, horrified as she recognized the sound of Minako giggling uncontrollably, she jerked back with a violent stabbing of her feet to the tiles.  She nearly toppled backwards over his arm and made a quite frightened 'oh' sound in spite of his protectively tightening grip.  

        I couldn't possibly die soon enough, Ami thought despairingly as she fumbled to pull his hand from her waist and regained her balance.  She was very pleased that she managed to maintain a semblance of dignity, calmly brushing her hands over her skirt whilst keeping her head down for fear she might see his expression and be perpetually flustered.  As it was, two thin hands plummeted to grab her shoulders in a gentle, if firm, grip and tilt her up so he could stare at her face, the grey of his gradually dying cigarette bobbing as though he was chewing or playing with the end in his mouth, his heavily lidded eye of icy blue specked with black slivering over her features.

        She had the inane desire to spontaneously combust or be struck by a freak bolt of lightning, so long as the irritably present feeling of tangible discomfort, as well as that disconcerting tingling, would simply take leave of her consciousness and plague her at more reasonable times such as when she was battling indescribable evil.  Embarrassing things such as this always made a great deal more sense when she was choking via a particularly vicious strangle hold.  Briefly, it crossed her mind perhaps these strands of thought were not quite what one would consider in the vein of normal, but the feel of his smooth fingertips tapping the underside of her chin effectively disturbed her mind from completing its chosen quest of proving her insanity.  "Um," she began intelligently, shifting her weight from one leg clasped in pastel blue leggings to the other, the cloth of her darker blue miniskirt rustling in quiet mockery.

        "Ah!" he suddenly cried, an almost child-like expression of sly glee spreading over his fine features as she blinked and felt her own features contorting once more with the thick fiery flush combing her skin into shades of red usually not seen on the human face.  "My exquisite nightclub angel!"  He stepped back a glorious pace, shifting the cigarette more definitely to the corner of his mouth and absently flicking the soothingly warm pad of his thumb across the dip just below her lips, where a nearly imperceptible trace of ash had taken up residence following the unheralded kiss; she thought mayhap she had somehow frozen herself solid, and whether or not this sudden inability to move could mean nasty things in the future.

        Somewhere in the unfortunately prominent background, both of her fellow omnipotent fellow senshi were making mortifyingly goopy comments she could only wish were not so painfully audibly, and she clenched her jaw in a wave of irritation that balled up in her gut almost angrily.  Sanji's hands abandoning her small shoulder and tapered face stung her mind in a flash, tugging her from internalized fuming to a slightly more uncomfortable reality, and she prepared her limbs to hastily, clumsily stumble toward the door in hopes of escaping this situation, the sort she had avoided to the best of her capabilities for many a year.

        This, sadly, was not to be, as his muted peach hand closed around the slender circumference of her wrist.

        "Ami," said he in a light voice tinged with honeyed teasing, the thin corner of his mouth twitched up faintly in a manner that sparked a wave of self-conscious awareness in her throat and chest, completely tossed off-guard by the carefully guarded predatory undertones that crafty smile offered, especially as it was directed at her of all people.  Instantly, as she attempted to beat back the urge to squirm and possibly spout off a nervous lecture over civility and basic human etiquette, his face adopted an innocently sunny grin that flashed teeth in a way that successfully avoided melting into toothy obnoxiousness.  "I feared I'd never see you again!" he confessed, his sleek voice verging close to piteous sing-song, his one visible eye flickering shut playfully as he clasped her hand to his lips, brushing the roughened softness over one knuckle and sparking another flood of redness; had he just _licked her knuckle?_

        There was absolutely no reason why God or Queen Serenity could not just tear her soul from her body right at this moment and spare her the agony of merely existing, what with the horribly public things that seemed to be stalking her over the course of the past sixteen hours or so.  Casting a desperate plea for help from her two friends, she came close to groaning loudly at the sheer irony of her abnormally slow realization that, somehow, someway, Minako and Makoto had set the current scenario up.  "R-really," she offered with a weak smile, tucking her hand away from his and clasping it, fisted, in the stern grip of her other hand behind her skirt.  "That's, um, well," and she was fast losing whatever delicate thread of resolve was carrying her along, the blush spreading to her unusually choked-feeling throat.

        Before he could act on the somewhat suggestive appearance warning he was about to throw general rules of society out the window and kiss her again, a devilishly grinning Minako was hovering distractively at her elbow, flinted blue eyes glimmering with what could only be described as demonic intrigue.  Her lips curved up cattily as she touched a hand in cruel thought to her chin, catching both Ami's attention as well as that of Sanji's more flirtatious one.  "Ami," she said in her songbird lecturing tone, "how rude of you not to introduce us!"

        "Very unlike you, Ami," came Makoto's gentler rebuke and she twisted around slightly to see the taller girl standing, hands placed on her hips in jest as she shook her head mournfully.  "I mean, really, how can we be good chaperones if you don't even help us out just a little with your boyfriend?"

        "Makoto!" Ami shrieked, her face brightening with horror before she clapped her hands to her face, moaning pitifully and shaking her head side to side as her chin sunk to level with her dainty collarbone.  "Oh, it isn't fair," she moaned brokenly in a voice that was incomprehensible past the shelter of her hands.  The strong hand of Makoto caught her forearm, gently tugging her along toward one of the booths as the eldest of the three girls laughed comfortingly, her other arm winding behind Ami's back in a protective hug whilst Minako turned her stunning smile on the delighted Sanji.

        "We're Aino Minako and Kino Makoto, by the way," added the cheerful blonde girl in sturdy reply.  She gestured at the appropriate times, once at herself and the second time at her auburn-haired companion, and he spared a flashy bow for them both.

        "So," she all but cooed, inwardly cackling, hooking her arm around his and sauntering to the booth Makoto was currently assisting a still-miserable Ami to its candy-red leather seats, "tell me about yourself, Mister Sanji."  

        He winked at her and she cackled even harder in her mind, to the point where a barely repressed giggle pierced her lips with its goofiness as he turned slightly to yell, "Hey, dumbass boss-man!"  Motoki congenially turned to look, releasing his mop against the wall and preparing to do his rounds in the adjoined arcade, and gave him a friendly, if strained, look.  "I'll be a minute."  Motoki's nod was weary.

        Minako took advantage of his temporary distraction, sharing a conspiratorial wink with Makoto, who mouthed something akin to _we need to survey him!  _

        "My name is Brooks Sanji," he said once the three girls were at the booth, the blonde girl scooting over the leather and grinning at the dark-haired genius pinned between herself and the athletic brunette.  "The Japanese say it surname first, no?" he then asked, in precaution, pinning the cigarette with his thumb and forefinger, pulling it from his lips and twirling it for a moment around his fingers.  "Anyway, my grandfather was from India and my other grandfather was Japanese, and they wanted me to learn the Oriental arts of cooking.  As any artist knows, if one wants well to learn an art, it is best to go where the art is birthed."  Ami nodded absently in sage agreement and he flashed a bright smile at her, the soft bangs of gold cast over his left eye shifting just so, and she suddenly seemed to realize what she was doing, her face switching to watching the table with great interest.

        "So you came to the Crown Parlor," Minako said slowly.

        "Side job," he said cheerfully, slipping the cigarette back into his lips and pinching his teeth around it.  "I'm staying with my second cousin, or third cousin, it's mindlessly confusing either way," he waved his hand in a never-you-mind gesture, "and I'm in attendance of a university for traditional Japanese cooking."  He placed his hand over his heart in a grand form, bowing just a bit and tossing his head lightly when he lifted it, in order to weave the dark gold strands away from his face.  "But if I had known Japan had such lovely women, I would have come much sooner," he smiled cutely, one finger flying up to adjust the wound cord of his apron, moving it a little along his shoulder in order to stop the uncomfortable pinching feel.

        "Ah, ah," Minako giggled, wiggling her finger joyously as she basked naturally in the attention, and she turned her gaze pointedly to her smallest friend.  "Ami, isn't he such a doll?  Funny, too?"  Her one response was a brighter flush of red, and she clapped her hands together with a peal of unexplained laughter as Makoto pinched the bridge of her nose in amused recognition; it would take a miracle of the highest order for Ami to not piece together what, exactly, her two friends were attempting to do with her and the recently introduced cook. 

        "Well," he smiled slyly at the trio, filching a pen and a legal pad from the wide pouch of his apron, flipping over the nondescript covering cardboard of the front and pressing the pen's smooth point to the lined white paper.  "Alas, I must do my job, so what will you three goddesses prefer for a light brunch?" 

        Minako leaned up instantaneously, easily plucking both pen and paper from his hands as the cigarette bobbed in surprise between his lips, and, with the sudden air of a gossipy tabloid reporter enveloping her much to the chagrin and exasperation of her two friends, turned to face him.  "Brooks Sanji-kun," she said with a false seriousness in her voice, "I have some very important questions I must ask of you!"  Before he could do much at all, in way of surprise, humor, or anything else, she had jabbed the pen under his nose, demanding suspiciously, "What are your intentions when you first meet a girl!"  She said it more along the lines of a rhetoric cry than that of a protective question, and he merely adopted an enthusiastic pollster's response on his face.

        "Now, now, we shouldn't talk about such things in front of innocents," he said in a sneakily playful tone, sharing a slightly embarrassing smile with Ami, who pretended she had not seen it.  "But, ah, for Ami, my delightful nightclub angel," his smile changed into a dreamily romantic one she suspected was not quite what it seemed to be, "my intentions are what any man's would be: blindingly obvious!"  To her immense mortification, he propped his hands on the table and swept forward, pressing a brief kiss to the small stretch of paled skin exposed between her dark bangs where the part shifted direction.  

        "Yes!" Minako agreed widely, scribbling some indecipherable note on the first page of the legal pad in her illegible, twisted handwriting.  "Makoto, can you handle the next question?"

        Ami realized with no small amount of terror that the tall brunette very easily and smoothly picked up right where the blonde had left off, indicating this had been practiced at length at some point.

        "What is the first thing you look for in a woman?" demanded the tall, strong young woman with thick ruddy brown hair, her green eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she sized up his introspective look.  His blue eye was rolled into the corner, tilted up as though he was considering it very hard and with much digging into his psyche, and he drummed his fingers over the table where his palms still cupped the rectangle edge, one of his shined feet lifting to prop on the enclosed toes over the tiled floor.

        "Sexual compatibility," he finally answered cheerfully, moving forward to kiss Ami again; her face colored with the shades of red normally only found on notably ripe tomatoes, she blocked him clumsily, working her hand in front of the other and holding both up palms out, and instead his puckered lips landed squarely on the sensitive skin betwixt middle and ring.  "That was hardly fair, angel love," he said sorrowfully, one hand striking free of the table and wrapping the thin fingers around both her wrists, tugging down so he could place the kiss properly on her cheek.

        Her shoulder dodged up, rubbing against her cheek in unconscious shield, and he pulled back, smugly victorious amidst polite clapping from Minako and a muffled snort from Makoto.  "Thank you, my ladies," he spared a broad smile while Ami slowly lowered her shoulder, touching fingertips to the spot he had so briefly past his lips over.

        She would remove her own tongue, of course, with a rusty salad fork before letting on to anyone that she felt even the smallest marginal fraction of flattered affection for his actions, much less any form of attraction for the gangly man with seemingly no scruples answering the questions with great speed and teasing.  Still, the traitorous pounding of her heart only served to remind her more of her need for academia, and she folded her hands together in her miniskirt, her lips thinning into a prim line frank and clean of anything that might prove her anxiety inside.  The fact that he had kissed her a total of six times, three directly on the mouth and with a bit of teasing lip she had not expected, was by no means whatsoever, bar none and may hell freeze over if otherwise, responsible for the imperceptible quivering in her fingertips.  Of course it wouldn't be, she reminded herself with a soft, self-deprecating laugh in her mind.

        "He's perfect," Makoto hissed at her as Sanji took their orders and, presumably, whatever the other two girls had suggested for her; oh dear God, she hoped they hadn't made any form of sexual innuendo in the selection, because Crown Parlor certainly carried foods like that.

        "He's delicious!" Minako chirruped in addendum, her grin and wink painfully promiscuous in meaning.

        "I'm leaving," Ami announced in a tight voice, sliding under the table and ignoring the embarrassment of semi-crawling to the main floor, from which she bolted toward the door and vanished into the sunlight.  None of it was because of him.  At all.  Because, quite simply, it was not, and that was all there was to it, for she had a very important project to focus on, and she was sure she would remember what it was by the time she had arrived at the library.

--

        The welcoming blasts of cool air from the air conditioning above greeted her with timing long perfected as she swung the door to the Mizuno penthouse flat open, carefully shifting the weight of her three bags of groceries from one hip to the other as she kicked her shoes off onto the mat beside the door.  Pulling her keys from the lock, she ducked the thin pieces of metal into the bag nearest her, peeking around the bags and hurrying to the glazed counter lining about the kitchen, and let them fall limply, gracefully to the table, her hand flying up to still the tumbling motions of one.  She deftly plucked the keys from their squished position near a large head of celery and placed them casually on the thin bar where a large box had been cut from the wall that bordered polished kitchen from stylish living room.  Rifling through the bags, she busied herself in the few minutes before her mother's early shift came to an end, tucking vegetables and fruit, as well as other perishables, into the refrigerator before stopping, with a soft smile on her face, to smell the apple in her hand and decide this would be her evening snack.

        Once the bread and other miscellaneous items had been placed into their designated spots, Ami bit gently into the crisp fruit clasped in her hand, chewing and wrinkling her nose a bit as the peel gave her a minor struggle.  Wandering into the living room, she enjoyed the feel of the patterned tightly wound rug giving just so under her mild weight, her leggings still smooth on her calves and thighs, and she seated herself with a faint hint of regality.  To her left, on the glossy wood of the table next to the steamed golden couch, placed ceremoniously on a perch over the thin silk cloth set up as a layered protection, a small fish tank boasted a small, rippling beta.  It was a beautiful fish of Amazon descent, colored by tropical blues occasionally highlighted with deep purple and rich garnet, with a streaming tail and a genetic predisposition to masculine rivalries, ones that quite often ended in death.

        Though the incident with Fish-Eye was a little too prominent in her memory, which she could thank the relative shortness of the Dead Moon Circus' end for, she had realized she liked having a fish to gaze at and wiggle her finger around in entertainment for herself and the tiny animal.  Maybe, she conceded as she nibbled a second bite from her apple and rubbed her fingertip over the glass containing the wriggling fish, a little more for her entertainment than its own.  She smiled at her thoughts and tapped her fingertip once on the glass, the fish's deep unblinking eye dolefully watching her with silent mechanics, and it flashed its tail at her, swirling into the seaweed that needed to be replaced once a week, anchored to the floor of the tank by countless shimmering marbles flattened by a machine.

        Behind her, the front door creaked open and she turned, a friendly smile on her face as she bit into the apple again, chewing and swallowing.  "Hello, Mom," she said, raising her hand in restrained greeting, and the woman sighed with the burdens of the day's job, and she nodded her own lopsidedly loving smile at her only child.  "How was your day?"

        "Oh, such and such," the comely woman answered in a manner that would have been breezy had her voice not been so exhausted.  She slid out of her own shoes after a moment's effort, closing the door with a curt clicking sound and twisting the lock firmly in her hand, sending the tumblers into noisy action, and shuffled stately over the marble entranceway to the springy rug hosting everything in the living room.  "And how was your study day at the library?" she smiled pleasantly, offering a genteel kiss to her daughter, who accepted it with her usual seriousness.  "Fine, I'm sure," and she sighed, taking the apple momentarily from Ami and biting a small bit of it free on the unmarred side, handing it back promptly.  

        "In any case, you must forgive a prying mother's curiosity," she smiled again, with a congenial wink of her eye as she positioned her arm so her elbow hung on the supporting ridge of the couch, the smooth back of her hand angled toward her face so her fingernails grazed her cheek, "but did you enjoy your evening with Minako-chan and Makoto-chan?  I hear they took you to one of those nightclubs along the strip, you know."  At Ami's surprised look, the apple bulging comically in the smooth curve of her cheek, she laughed and rustled her daughter's hair, saying teasingly, "Concerned Mothers for Enigmatic Daughters Network.  Aino-san and I spent a bit talking this morning before my shift began.  She informed me her daughter woke her around two with some noisy shrieks, which, based on what little I know of Minako-chan, is rather normal.  Something about a boy, though."

        Ami blushed a little, rolling the bitten apple in her hands and prickling her fingers on the formed ridges as she bit her lip slightly, and she admitted in a quiet voice, "I met a young man at Party's Club, yes.  It was nothing serious, though, Mom."  She offered a smile that did not quite meet her eyes in subtle continuation of her reply, and her mother laughed in a chummy manner, her hand lowering from the couch to wrap her daughter in a loose, warm hug she easily returned.  "His name is Brooks Sanji-san," she mumbled to a low, amused question her mother asked, and she hastened to add, "and he is very annoying.  He's…"  Words failed her and she settled for a telling blush intermingled with the bizarre mixture of skittishness and flattered emotions she was only now becoming acquainted with.

        "Of course, Ami," her mother said congenially, patting her on the head in a jokingly patronizing manner, and she bit into the apple with a sigh.

--

--

**Notes:  **Still no plot, so far as I can tell.  But, hey, at least I sorta maybe know what I'm doing.  If you note, though, I used a few honorifics in this chapter (-san, -kun, -chan), but Sanji never uses them (and the senshi never use them with one another or Motoki, which I'll explain).  Now, for the senshi (and even Motoki), I'm using the excuse of friendship here (honorifics can be dropped under certain circumstances), what with the fact that they know each other so well.  As for Sanji…*grins*  Cultural gag next chapter, all.  Be on the look-out!

**Brief:  **Sorry it took a bit to get this up – I came down with strep throat on Saturday, which, really, didn't surprise me.  I get strep once every three years, and, alas, fifteen is a multiple of three.  *sighs*  But they gave me two shots!  Big shots in my hips!  Gah!  They hurt worse than my throat.  .  And my meds taste horrid.  Ah, well – I actually don't care that I'm sick.  *giggles*  I got Monday and Tuesday off, so I wrote all day while listening to Rush Limbaugh and country music.

**Feedback:  **Yay!  Reviews!  *victory sign*

**Disclaimer:  ***falls off chair laughing*

**Thaaank Yeeew:  **_Dee-Chan, this is turning out to be horrifically fun to write – apparently, I've been immersing myself in one too many plot-focused fics.  (I was grinning when I wrote the ending to 'Cowboy.'  Poor Ami, though.)  De nada!  *tips hat, if she only had a hat*  And many, many thanks for the compliments (not that I haven't had my share of poor-quality fics *flashbacks to original stories*).  __Sadie Joyce – Myst Lady, love slaves are funny, aren't they?  Usagi and Mamoru are each other's love slaves, Yuuichirou is Rei's love slave…but is Ami or Sanji the love slave?  Or could they be *gasp* equal rights love slaves?!  (*muffles laughter with hand*)  I think I had to write this because I needed the escape from seriousness.  Just a lighthearted endeavor, truly!  (And I'm finally working on my first Makoto-focused fanfic!  Hallelujah!  Everyone, read Naruto and find out who Kakashi-sensei is!)  _Reihn MidNite, _yes.  I enjoyed writing Minako so much it was almost disturbing…but, hey, it was fun!  And, unfortunately, I took out two gags from this chapter I was going to use (but I'm recycling them soon enough), both by mouth of Miss Aino.  Don't worry – no plot for a while yet.  __Devils Little Doll, they aren't the best pics of Sanji, though (he looks somewhat druggie/sickly in the ones from ish three).  I forgot one, too, that is in the second issue – at the tail end of the Valentine's Day special, on the Love Chocolate page, the torso pic of the guy adjusting a tie with a bouquet of flowers in the crook of his arm is none other than Sanji!  I'm having an obnoxiously good time writing Sanji and Ami.  __Oddball, it's a compulsion to laugh, isn't it?  Really, throwing opposites together is almost as funny as throwing together two people with unique 'likes' (such as Rei and Tasuki of Fushigi Yuugi).  I'm glad you enjoyed it so much!  And no fear – I doubt this or my upcoming Naruto/SM fic (yes, I know, shameless plug…*plug!plug!plug!*) will fall to the wayside.  Too much fun writing!  __SailorPikaAngel, aw, glory, your reviews are so funny.  *stifles giggle*  And, sad to say, there was no kissing at the end of this chapter.  I think it's safe to expect a kiss next chapter, though – because, gaw, Ami deserves it, with all the times she's been shafted in fics.  Same for poor Makoto-san!  Why aren't there more Ami or Makoto fics?  Usagi, Rei, and – dare I say it? – Mamoru will get in on the matchmaking scheme soon enough.  *hi-fives right back*  __BloodyVixen, are you suggesting there is something wrong with Usopp?  *suspicious look*  Usopp is my favoritest OP character…*laughs*  Ah, don't worry!  I don't think I could write Usopp and Minako, though, as Kaya is far too perfect for him, but thinking it over, I don't think any of the main Straw-Pirate crew goes well with her – and I think I know who I'm possibly going to pair her with…but it's a secret!  *is hit by bowling ball*  Ow…(Thanks for the feedback, ma'am!)_

All of your comments mean a great deal to me!  Seriously, whenever I'm writing, I keep a printout of the reviews near my computer so I'm reminded that people have expectations and whatnot.  ;]  I would still write even if there weren't reviews, but that makes it even the more wonderful to know people out there are enjoying what I'm doing.  Thanks, all!


	4. Theory

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Get This Party Started

by Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease

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Yakking: I had no idea writing this fanfic was going to be half as fun as it's turning out to be! Somehow, someway, _Party _has actually slightly pushed to the side all my other works (_Requiem_, _Siren_, and fics in a different account, _Dread _and _Baratie's_), which are still being worked on, but not quite as quickly. I love plots, especially ones that twist and surprise you when you least expect it (I love being surprised and when I read a particularly delightful cliffhanger), but simply writing a romantic comedy? It's oddly liberating. I haven't been as amused writing a fanfic as this in at least eighteen months (and by amused I mean I haven't laughed out loud writing my own fic in that length of time). 

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Sanji: I'll yak more about him later. You know all you need to know for now!

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Continuity: Remember how I said it would be (the SM continuity) a mix of manga and anime? The last chapter was the first hint of the manga (I mentioned Ryo, who was only in the anime, just like Yuuichirou, and last time the 'Fish-Eye incident,' which only happened in the manga – Ami bought a fish from the Dead Moon Circus, a fish that just so happened to be Fish-Eye). Neat, no? Sorry to say, no OP continuity, yet. I'll be mentioning Nami in a bit, though…

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Bleh: Sorry – no cultural gag involving the honorifics. *sad face* But there is a different one I find simultaneously funny and embarrassing. Meheheheh. 0o; What kind of laugh was that?!

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Summary: [One Piece/Sailor Moon] When Minako's plan for a relaxing evening after defeating the universe's greatest evil involved a nightclub, Ami was by no means expecting to actually enjoy herself!

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Chappie: Minako and Makoto (though gifted in what they do) alone cannot bring about true love – but what of Usagi and Rei? Can the original senshi formulate a foolproof plan? Only with Mamoru's help (and intensive study of Sanji).

--

--

__

I've got a theory it could be demons

A dancing demon! No, something isn't right there

I've got a theory some kid is dreaming!

And we're all stuck inside his wacky Broadway nightmare

I've got a theory we should work this out

It's getting eerie, what's this cheery singing all about?

-cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, '_I've Got a Theory'_

--

--

The phone at the Chiba apartment began the tedious process of shrilly ringing around or at nine p.m., effectively drawing Mamoru's attention from slicing a sharpened knife carefully through a winding carrot as his petite little blonde all but danced from the back hallway. She paused on one leg, her hand working back to fiddle with the pink bow on the sock of her lifted foot, and she tapped her other hand to the wall for balance as she dropped her heel with a muted bang. "I'll get it, Mamo!" she chirped, bouncing with all the brilliant energy she seemed to be spun of toward the sleek black phone waiting in its cordless glory on the counter lining the kitchen. He smiled a gentle thanks, dropping his dark gaze back to the vegetable he was slicing into perfect thin fractions, and ignored her brief raspberry, a signal of her disgust at the carrots in general and an obnoxiously endearing bit of her affection.

"Hello-hello?" she sang into the phone, rocking up on her arched toes before plummeting back on her heel and curling her toes into the air beneath the silky cloth of her cashmere socks. "Mina!" Usagi cheered, her other hand flinging up to cup the bottom of the phone and tug it closer to her mouth so as to ease the translation of speech. "Oh, Mako, too! Why are you guys calling me and Mamo? You know tonight's our quality time, even if he is putting carrots in the soup," she stuck her tongue out expressively at him and he made a quick kissing sound that sparked a forgiving giggle from her.

She paused, then, as she grew suspiciously silent in a way that caused him to slowly slide the knife through the end of the carrot and straighten up, patting his hands over the spattered green apron as he judged with great worry her expression, she ceased her antsy motions. A smile spread over her face, the sort he recognized uneasily as being somewhat more unsettling than her unusual calmness, and she promptly exploded with vast amounts of cheer. "Ah!" she cried, tossing her hand in the air and dancing around in a happy circle before she tossed herself onto his couch, kicking her legs up into the air over the couch's abused arm as her chin drooped into the cushions. "You must be kidding, Mina! She isn't? Don't you dare kid me!" she squealed, rolling over onto her back and kicking her legs frantically, the stockings of her calves whispering past one another. 

Listening intently to the two voices on the other line, she rolled up into a sitting position, the inside of her knees rubbing the arm of the couch as she pressed the phone tightly to the cute side of her face. Usagi nodded and he, curious and still a little on-guard, wiped his hands off on a fluffy towel that was more or less dry, padding in his slipper-sheathed feet over the tiles onto the carpeting of the compact living area. She made a quiet motion with her hand, fingers tucking in slightly as she puckered her lips in hope of him recognizing the gesture as a request for silence. Mamoru considered the benefits of kissing her, just to show her what she ought not to do, but decided against it, merely moving to seat himself precariously on the back of the couch, his legs propped on the floor in protective balance.

She gasped, clapped her fingertips over her lips, and breathlessly agreed to whatever it was her friends had asked, clicking the phone off decisively with her thumb and then smacking the power back on with a slipping tap. Punching the '3' speed dial, knowing her beloved had her number programmed into the cordless phone, she held it to her ear once more, tucking an absent strand of wisping yellow behind her dusky pink ear. "Mama?" she asked in her cheeriest voice, patting her free hand on her knees, legs tilted to the side as she unconsciously adopted her most charming face. "I need to stay over at Minako's house tonight for a study project we're doing with Makoto. Is that okay?" She paused for a moment, and joyously replied, "Many, many thanks, Mama!"

Turning to see Mamoru's expectant face, for this ploy had oft been exercised in the past, she brightly handed him the silent phone and leaned up to kiss his cheek momentarily, saying, "Love you, Mamo! I need to stay over at Minako's house so we can talk about girl things." She sprung toward the door, nearly tripping over her loose socks and wind-milling her arms to recapture her equilibrium, and scooped up her Hello Kitty knapsack, tucking her arms into the rope straps and shifting it into a more comfortable position. "Bye-bye, Mamo!" she waved happily, and she bounded out the door, shutting it loudly behind her.

"What just happened?" Mamoru asked the air as the stove began flashing somewhat alarming sounds of boiling water, the soup popping large bubbles that interrupted the film that had settled over its liquid surface.

--

"Popcorn!" Minako declared pompously, thrusting her arm out and locking her elbow so the steaming bag delicately pinched betwixt her fingertips was prominently seen by all of the girls clustered in her small room. "Wait, we need to use the bowls, okay? Artemis gets fat on the stuff left behind if we just eat straight out of the bag," she continued, much to her feline's obvious consternation and Rei's slightly sinister amusement. "Is Usagi here yet?"

"I think she just got here, actually," Makoto responded, tilting her head to the side and listening with great care to the sound of muffled female voices near the front door. "Your mom's talking to her." Everyone made soft agreeing sounds and waited in general docility for her to pound in her usual boisterous steps up the stairs, taking the sudden quiet as reason enough to pour the popcorn into the decorative enamel bowls. Soon, below on the first floor, she made a loud sound of thanks to Mrs. Aino and they heard her footsteps traipsing over the carpeted staircase to the main platform of the second floor, complete with a stumbling noise and a murmured expression of sullen recognition before she fell through the door gracelessly.

"Hi!" cried Usagi happily from her sprawled position on the floor, taking the opportunity to wiggle out of her knapsack and shove it to the side; it wavered on its plastic base for a moment and, with a muffled _whoompf _sound, collapsed onto the furry leg of a large, overstuffed toy that was meant to resemble a teddy bear. "I came over as fast as I could, and I am now completely out of change for the bus, is that popcorn?" her speech reflected her own idiosyncrasies, her willing easiness in turning quite swiftly from one subject to another. "Oo, don't hog it all, Minako, pass me a bowl." She accepted her own portion eagerly as she drew herself up into a sitting position, legs arched while she knocked the door shut with her heel, and she fingered several pieces of the heated, somewhat buttered treat into her waiting mouth.

"Usagi, try not to bite off your own fingers," Rei teased and she was answered by the named girl sticking her tongue out rudely, masticated popcorn flashed in unwanted display. 

"Point of order!" Minako cried, cutting in before one of the duo's infamous miniature wars could begin and ruin the entire purpose of this get-together, especially considering the strings Minako had been forced to pull to even obtain the rights for her friends to stay over on a school night. "We all know why we're here, right?" she demanded, narrowing her pale blue eyes as if daring anyone to challenge her otherwise.

Rei, never being one known to back down from a challenge, even one issued nonverbally by the excitable love senshi, raised her hand in wry exception as Usagi and Makoto made sounds of understanding. "Actually, I haven't the faintest idea why I'm here," she confessed in a tone suggesting she cared very little in any case, absently tucking a piece of popcorn on her tongue and chewing regally on it. A trio of insidious glares were sent in her direction, the ones from Minako and Makoto being slightly more venomous than that of Usagi's always childish ones, and she grinned disarmingly, waving her hand as though greeting them.

"Okay," Makoto said, her voice adopting a business quality as she leaned forward from where she was seated on the edge of Minako's bed, the blonde standing near the head of her own bed and Rei leaning casually back against the wall connecting door to window. "Long story short, when we were at that Party's Club place, Ami got picked up by some guy who, by the way, is really tall and probably half as crazy as Minako," here she ducked a lazy blow from Minako that was more or less aimed at her right ear, "and, apparently, he's a little fixated on her. We found out he's working at Crown Parlor, and found all sorts of goodies out about him. Well, kinda goodies, I think." She shrugged in an aura of meager helplessness. "It wasn't really a lot, truthfully."

"This is stupid," Rei informed them as Makoto agreed.

Minako smacked her shoulder and the brunette made a yelping sound, rubbing at her arm as she scowled at the smaller girl. The peppiest one of the girls yanked a chair away from her ram-shack desk, the aged computer on it making a creaking noise she steadfastly ignored, and she quickly stood on the chair's dip, fisting her hands and crossing her arms over her chest as she stared down her nose at the others. "Look at you!" she said in disappointment, whipping her arms back into a perfect Sailor V formation of justice, love, and the pure-hearted way, jabbing her finger at a random spot and wrinkling the fingers of her opposite hand around the matching upper thigh as she shook her head sadly. 

"This is a mission to save the love of a young woman abandoned by the ways of blessed Aphrodite's cherubic son! Cupid's arrows have far too long missed striking her shimmering heart and she is falling into the dark grip of icy apathy." She posed triumphantly, sliding off the chair to prop one leg alone up on it as she switched her gaze to the ceiling, a powerful set to her jaw as she gazed at some undetermined point; mildly unsure of what to do, both Makoto and Usagi glanced up at the monotonous white-washed ceiling as Rei rolled her eyes and shielded her face, pretending she was not part of their antics. "It is now up to us to save our beloved comrade before true love forever ignores her existence!"

"Hurrah!" Usagi cheered, pumping her arm into the air and glowing with her eternal well of matchmaking predisposition.

"But how?" Makoto questioned, momentarily deflating. 

This brought a lull in conversation that lasted but a few seconds as, judging it her turn, Usagi stumbled to her feet and stabbed her hands to her waist and glared cutely at their grouping, clicking her stocking heel on the door and sticking it into a fully closed position. "We have to do what Ami always tells us to do," she said, nodding with deep seriousness as Minako nodded her head in concurring motions, "and research!"

"We did," pointed Makoto, digging under one of the clumsy folds of Minako's bedspread and pulling free a wrinkled piece of ripped paper. Handing it over to Rei, who grabbed it before Usagi had the opportunity, she petted the thus far ignored white cat padding over to shiver happily into her lap.

"I can't believe you asked these sort of things in front of Ami of all people!" the priestess-in-training gaped in understatement, realizing when she was done intoning the words that, truthfully, it was not half as surprising as she made it out to be. "You asked him about sex?" she continued, disbelieving and yet not shocked. "Is he some kind of pervert?"

"Minako!" Usagi scolded. "Not that kind of research! We have to find out what he likes and doesn't like, what he does with his free time, and whether he likes nerdy girls or," she twisted her hand around vaguely, "girls like Minako."

"Hey!" the blonde girl cried in a muffled voice, having stuffed her head under her bedspread in search of something. "That was uncalled for!" She retreated from the mysterious underworld of her bed and, shaking out her marginally tangled gold hair and absently sweeping thin strands of her away from her lips and eyes, she motioned to a pair of faded binoculars. "Behold!" she said in her best showman's voice, the booming sort used by telemarketers and slightly crazed game show hosts, "The 'nocs I stole from my mum!" She added in a conspiratorial voice, holding her hand up to shield her mouth from the wall as she winked engagingly, "She spies on our neighbors and all, wot wot." At some point, a loose British accent worked its way into her speech and Makoto nabbed the binoculars from her, rubbing the side of her hand over Artemis' head in apology for the sudden movement.

"Like mother, like daughter," Makoto said sardonically and Artemis, feeling a parental sense of duty to the thrice-teased senshi he was assigned to, poked her reproachfully with his claws. "Ow, Art!" she griped, tugging on his tail and sending him haughtily walking to the more respectable Rei.

"Let me see that," Usagi spoke innocently, falling into a sitting position on her shins and reaching for the paper Rei held. A brief tug-of-war ensued and she finally succeeded, though the bottom of the paper was knotted and torn off in order for her to accomplish her deed, but it did not matter, as nothing had been writ on it. She scanned it and gasped, taken aback, and she rolled it into a crinkled ball, tossing the offensive paper at the other blonde's head. "Mi-na-ko!" she wailed. "That's horrible! We're trying to get Ami together with a guy who doesn't mind sex on – the – first – date?"

"Most guys wouldn't say no to an offer like that," Minako defended with grand hauteur, sticking her nose in the air and jabbing the balled paper into a small yellow trashcan by her bed. 

"That reminds me," Makoto commented off-handedly, turning a bit to face their mildly fuming host, who looked sulkily back at her, "what did that big foot thing mean?" At the returned look of blank lacking comprehension, she prompted with a forward half-nod of her head, widening her eyes slightly and lifting her reddened brown eyebrows in a mystifying manner. 

An understanding look suddenly blossomed on Minako's face and she grinned provocatively, the corners of her mouth curling in a vicious type as she bounded onto the bed, sliding to the tallest one of the girls and cupping her hand around ear and mouth as she whispered an explanation into Makoto's ear. The other two feigned elaborate disinterest, eyes flicking to the corners as they futilely attempted to catch even the faintest hint of what was being exchanged. The narrow green eyes on Makoto's face widened again, this time in obvious shock as she lurched back, her face a mix of disgust and wonderment while Minako, satisfied, bounced off her bed and giggled.

"Ew!" Makoto professed. "That's nasty! And you looked?"

Minako winked, flashing a v-sign to the trio as Rei latched onto the tracing thought, accurately guessing what the somewhat perverted blonde girl had whispered to their strongest member, and she made a face. Usagi was suitably lost, her hands fiddling in her lap as she peered around, trying to grasp at what was passing around her, and she sighed, deciding it probably was something she would not appreciate anyway.

"Anyway," Artemis interrupted the voiceless tirade filling the room, stretching in Rei's arms and purring sleepily as he rolled his head in the soft crook of her arm, his blue eyes half-lidded in contentment, "the gist of what you want to do is to get Ami in a relationship she most likely doesn't want. With this in mind, and knowing Usagi's track record for getting people together, much less yours, Mina," he stately ignored the twin cries of insulted pride as Rei stifled a giggle by thinning her lips and ducking her head, the raven tendrils of her hair obscuring her face, "I would recommend trying to get Mamoru to help. Don't let Luna in on it, you know how she is."

Reluctant noises of agreement sounded from all corners of the room and Usagi had to admit, "Luna won't like it if she even thinks we're meddling around with Ami's love life."

"Meddling?" said Minako indignantly, flopping onto her bed. "We aren't meddling!"

"Then what are we doing?" asked Rei pointedly, stroking Artemis' ears to his immense pleasure.

"Preventive polling of males in hopes of creating a more helpful environment for Ami, something that we know makes it easier to defend people," Makoto sniffed elegantly. "Are we gonna get Mamoru to help out or not?"

--

Mamoru knew, deep inside where he tended to bury the things he desperately wanted to pretend were not real, what he had just agreed to could be summed up in a grand total of three words: complete, sheer idiocy. This, of course, would undoubtedly come back to haunt his every waking moment in a matter of days or weeks as one too many bargains he had made did so, but he more than knew that if he really ever wanted to be seen in public with Usako again, he was going to help her with the latest bizarre mission she had chosen. How, exactly, this applied to any of their duties as humanity's protectors and whatnot, as Usako had insisted it was with a great deal of passion, he was very unaware of, and somehow he had agreed to it before she burst into tears or he found out, both possibly at the same time.

He wished, though, as he stiffly dialed Motoki's phone number and prayed with massive quantities of sincerity and heartfelt adoration for God to strike him with sudden paralysis so he could not finish the phone call, he had dredged up whatever semblance of strength would have given him ability to stand up to her. It was impossible, no matter how much he wished it, to even think of crossing his girlfriend's soul-filled beliefs, even if he did think they were foolhardy and silly; why on Earth would she think Ami was even interested in a relationship with some guy she had just met? What little he had seen of the Thirtieth Century, she and the other senshi had been more than content with their duties, and though, granted, he did not know whether or not the senshi were married or mothers or whatever, he still found it difficult to imagine Ami – Ami, of all people; Mizuno 'dating is evil' Ami! – in love. 

"Motoki," he said into the phone, keeping his voice low for fear any one of the girls currently crowded into his living room at eleven-thirty-two p.m. would pipe up and ruin the illusion of casual interest. "Sorry to call so late," he muttered apologetically, earning a yawning reply from the blonde on the receptive side of the line.

"No, it's okay," he heard a mumbled response. "Just out of curiosity, though, why are you calling me at almost midnight?"

Mamoru exhaled, turning so his back was facing the senshi from where he stood in the kitchen, trying to blend into the shadows spread unevenly throughout the eclipsed linoleum room and failing miserably as he was not wearing his Tuxedo Kamen uniform. "Usako and her friends have some notion that your new cook and Ami, you know Ami, have some chemistry or the like. They want me to bug you for information."

"That's funny," Motoki yawned again, his jaw cracking formidably, and he uttered a soft pseudo-curse before continuing in his slumber-eased mumble, "Sanji-san was asking me for information about Ami-chan all afternoon today. Seems she ducked out after Mina-chan and Mako-chan ordered food, and he was a bit upset at that. He's one of the most foul-mouthed people, bar none, to ever work at Crown."

"Please, Motoki, this is serious," Mamoru all but hissed into the phone, glancing briefly over his shoulder and granting the hovering girls a nervous smile; they blinked from where they had crowded around the entrance to the kitchen and sheepishly backed off, returning to their antsy seats in the living room, even the normally stoic Rei looking somewhat perturbed that it was taking longer than five seconds for him to accomplish the goal set before him. "Just tell me what you know before they kill me."

Motoki laughed completely unsympathetically. "Okay: his name is Brooks Sanji, and he's from America, but he speaks fluent Japanese and some Mandarin with a decent accent. Age is twenty-three, he's taller than I am by about two inches, and I'm willing to bet a strong wind could knock him over he's so thin. He cooks just as good as Mako-chan and just as fast, and he's got an incredible work ethic, even if he does smoke in the kitchen.

"On the other hand, it's impossible to dissuade him from flirting: he likes girls, he flirts with girls, and he'll ignore the other customers at times; that's not to say he forgets them, he just pays more attention to people in skirts. He has problems relating to guys, though, and I've been cursed at by him more in one day than the combined total of times Rei-chan has gone off on any man." Motoki paused to yawn again, and he said, "I think that's all I know, actually. Sorry, I have to go: Rika's spending the night, and she has some trip to leave on tomorrow."

"No problem," Mamoru cleared, shutting his cordless phone off when Motoki had hung his line up, and he set the phone on the counter with a soft clicking noise, dreading what needed to be done now. Clearing his throat, he muttered a few encouraging words and turned, jumping backwards and nearly cutting his hip on the jutting edge of the counter when he saw all four of the girls clustered together just a few inches behind him. "Usako! Girls!" he cried angrily, clapping his hand to his heart and glowering as they flushed embarrassed shades of peach red.

--

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Notes: So sad – no Sanji or Ami in this chapter at all. I'm probably going to write a Sanji perspective (not first-person mind you, but third-person limited) for the next chapter, mostly because I've only been able to write one side of him thus far. He might not be the brightest character from One Piece, but he does have depth, as do most OP characters, truthfully. :] Something to look forward to as the days pass by, no? 

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Feedback: It transfixes you. You cannot resist. You must review!

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Disclaimer: Here's a trend we all can agree on – I don't own 'em!

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Thanks: _Dee-Chan, _gotta love Sanji. *snark* He really has a very personal sense of morality and whatnot, does he not? (I love using archaic speech patterns. Mwahahaha! I am…kinda maybe sorta evil.) I love Minako and Makoto, but I think I'm going to write Makoto just a bit differently (she's obviously going to be more protective of Ami than Minako). _BloodyVixen, _I love Usopp! Ah! If there were no Kaya, I'd want him all to myself! But, alas, he and Kaya are just so absolutely adorable – I love toasty warm couples. And, as I'm sure you know, this thing called 'normal' is highly overrated. ;] _Devils Little Doll,_ take that, critics! I get reviews from a vampire. *Trigun-esque V-for-Victory handsign* Yes, strep throat is quite painful. 0o; I'm still taking these horrible little red pills and choking on every other one. Blegh. Glad you like the fic, and I'm trying to keep the work up. *nods vigorously* _SailorPikaAngel, _I absolutely /love/ your reviews! They compliment certain parts in order, and…ah, I love all my reviews. Yours are so much fun, though. *^.^* I'll take a moment to talk about the opening kiss below, but first! Dontcha worry, Ami'll come around. By chapter eight. (Which was actually were the story was originally going to end – eight parts – but I can't stop writing. I…can't help it…) I do think the fish is a beta (we had three in my family, and they're gorgeous, if somewhat homicidal), which is also called the fighter. ;] The parents of the senshi never get the attention they deserve (and who actually thinks they wouldn't notice the weeks their daughters just disappear?). _Oddball, _the survey is actually based on one my dad has been writing for the past three years in preparation of my coming to dating age (when I'm sixteen, and I don't want to date…guys are morons at this age, and especially guys in Mississippi). Meheheh. And I think I know what you mean – the overall feel was similar, right? Yatta! I'll keep working!

As for the kiss…initially, it was supposed to have been him kissing her, then greeting her (he had recognized her fully and whatnot), but I found I didn't like that much. Thusly, it changed to him recognizing her one level, kissing her, and then remembering who she was. And the really sad thing is that he would really do something like that. .; Sanji likes de wimmens. *giggles and falls off chair*


	5. Cigarette

Get This Party Started 

by Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease

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**Shtuff:  **Here it is, something that people have hinted at and mulled over!  Well, kinda.  Anyway!  A chapter from Sanji's point of view (such as the case may be), with a smoochie of sorts – I leave you to agonize over that horrible mini-cliffhanger, but first!  It really does mean a lot to me that you all have taken the time to review.  :]  Also, the layout of this chapter is somewhat hectic in design and whatnot: the first bit (before the double-dash that separates the scenes as evidenced in the other chapters – why am I using big words?!) follows the nightclub instance, and the second bit is Sunday evening, followed by Monday.  Lovely, isn't it?  I'm sure it just rivets you with a deep chocolate gooey-ness.  *laughs and winks*

**Sanji:  **I've been told in the OP section that I can characterize him very well, so odds are he'll be in character (*juts out chest*  Me big rooster on farm!  Me write character much good!) – just keep in mind he's a foul-mouthed guy who tends to be an idiot.  0o;  Are we surprised? 

**Eep:  **Ah!  I love you all so much!  *hugs everyone*  Thank you for being so supportive of me!

**Continuity:  **Yay!  I think I've covered this enough times…but this chappie, I hint at modernized OP continuity!  Oo, what could it mean?  (I…haven't a clue.  *massive sweatdrop*)

**Summary:  **[One Piece/Sailor Moon] When Minako's plan for a relaxing evening after defeating the universe's greatest evil involved a nightclub, Ami was by no means expecting to actually enjoy herself!

**What's New (Scooby-Doo):  **Sanji had plenty of time to mull over everything that happened – from a dance, to a kiss, to an interrupted talk.  With that in mind, he's got a few things left unresolved when Monday morning rolls 'round.  (And, yes, this is a very short chapter.  My apologies, all!)

**Remember!:**  Friday evening (or, perhaps, Sunday morning), Sunday evening, and Monday morning.  Friday, Sunday, Monday!  Those are the separated parts below.  *waggles finger*  Dontcha be fergettin' naow!

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_I've got one hand in my pocket_

And the other one's holding a cigarette… 

-Alanis Morisette, _'One Hand in My Pocket'_

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--

        He was strongly reminded of why, exactly, he was not particularly fond of alcohol in any form, pinching his nose as he tucked the lapels of his tie back together in an absent manner and flipped the keys on the metal ring about in smooth loops.  A small slip of polished metal was gripped in his palm, fingers twisting the key into the shadowed slot that took it in with a clink, and he leaned his forehead against the sturdy material of the apartment door to take in a calming breath.  The roiling nausea was a privately embarrassing reminder of his problems holding his liquor, and it took a moment's pause to restore his delicate sense of balance to a degree safe enough that he would keep from pitching through, say, a window.  That tended to be rather painful, if he recalled his currently somewhat fuzzy memories in a correct manner.

        "The hell," he muttered, shouldering the door aside and stepping cautiously into the dim shades of the darkened apartment, shoes scuffling over the metal bridge guarding the hallway from the thin platform of the cement outside.  Pinning the dead stub of a cigarette clenched in his mouth, he ripped it away and tossed it to the rippled cement, rocking back over the outer strip to grind the smoldering nub under his strong heel and licking his lips at the dry taste lining the smooth folds.  Sanji passed a lean hand through his gold hair, strands of the dark yellow shifted out of careful alignment over the course of the evening and early morn; he hazarded a peering glance at his watch as he sidled fully into the apartment and tugged the door shut with a slick noise at his back, recognizing barely the digits signifying it was nearly four in the morning of Sunday.  

        At least it'd been worth it, he reflected with a smug little smile as his fingers got caught in the worn necks of his polished shoes and yanked stubbornly at the leather contraptions until they finally gave way, popping away from his feet and exposing the socks to the air conditioned coolness without.  "Beautiful women everywhere," he grinned brightly, kicking his shoes aside and peeling off the socks next, wriggling his bare toes in the thin carpeting to welcome a freedom of the traces of lint.  "God, I love civilized society: women, music, and every damn vice on the planet in one easy location."  The practiced Japanese gave way to his natural English, a learned language slipping with ease into the practiced expertise of the language he had been taught in first.

        As he exhaled and drew in a deep breath of the manufactured air, rolling onto the toes of his feet and arching his heels into the air, he twisted his shoulders back, stretching his arms out to their gangly lengths and curling his fingers into backward curves.  Muscles and joints popped with satisfying little sounds, and he blew out a strong gust of air, a wavering vein of small grey tinging it for just a moment as the remaining nicotine-shafted smoke left his body.  Unfortunately, when he twisted his heels around and snapped into the natural pose of ordinary stance, he staggered just a bit, the remnant effects of the two drinks making themselves well known by way of dizziness and a brief assault of sickness in his gut.  

        "Oh, hell, I hate drinking," he muttered under his breath, sucking in air and pinching his lips shut to steady his momentary sense of health, or lack thereof.  "Social drinking can kiss my ass," and he strode in quick steps over the mildly littered floor to the small dinette attached to the also obnoxiously undersized foyer-and-all-purpose-room, heading directly to the deep sink positioned strategically in the counter near the refrigerator and the skinny hallway leading to it.  

        Leaning over, he shoved the faucet's jutting cold-water bar up with the swell of his palm, sending a noisy cascade of icy water pouring musically into the metallic sink, and he ducked his face into the stream of freezing water.  His lips puckered in automatic response to the numbing cold, darkly lidded eyes flickering shut to protect the sharp black-blue orbs from the stinging droplets, and he gritted his teeth, not enjoying the sensation but stubborn enough to force himself to endure it.  Gradually, he ceased to notice the uncomfortable fountain and blew warm air out of his centered mouth, lower lip cupping over his upper lip as he tossed the air up to sweep away dampened strands of hair from his slitted eyes.

        Sanji pulled himself back, slowly, from the tumbling river of water and twisted his wettened fingertips into the loose knot of his tie, prying at the ebony cloth and flipping the back tail over the lumped center, and he dipped his head to unhook the tie from his neck.  Folding the cloth over in his hand, he rested it smoothly on the spotless counter, rubbing his soaked palms over the thighs of his black pants before hurriedly shifting the faucet back off, and he drummed his right hand's fingers over the stretch of skin left open to the cooling air where the first button of his shirt gave way.  He hesitated, pausing his motions as he wrinkled his curled eyebrows together in distant thought, and his fingertips stilled, rubbing softly at the curved dip in his collarbone and rolling his lips to rid himself of the empty feel there.  

        "Shit, where are my cigarettes?" he muttered, patting his hands at his pockets and then at the left side of his chest in search of a breast pocket that did not exist.  "Shit!" he swore louder, shifting aside on his bare feet and stabbing his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers, fingers wriggling around in vain hopes of finding a desperately wanted pack of cigarettes.  "God damn it, I know I'm not out," he continued irritatedly, narrowing his visible eye and passing his cuff over his lips, wiping away what few droplets of water remained, "so where the hell are they?" 

        Storming into the thin, dark hall that led to the two bedrooms and solitary bathroom, he kicked the door at the skinny end open with a shove of his wide foot against the wood, and he glowered at his cousin's soullessly tidy room as though it had personally offended him.  He flipped the light switch on and bit his teeth down habitually, a thoughtless behavior meant to slip down on a nonexistent cigarette, finding his arrogant cousin was in no way present: the bed had no suspicious lumps, there was no unconscious man on the floor, and the closet was far too organized with clothing to fit anyone in it.  A tic formed in his cheek as he suppressed the urge to kick his cousin's bed out of a childish impulse, and he groaned, rolling his head forward and back, calling under his control the nerves that had been frayed by a lack of rest.

        "Shittin' hell with jet lag," he grumbled, recalling his own stubborn insistence that he was not suffering jet lag at all and grimacing as he flicked the light off, yanking the door into a noisy thundering click while stepping away back down the hall.  Shuffling over the carpeting, he cracked his neck painlessly, sharply turning it from one side to the other, and launched himself into the strenuous exercises that served as both escape route and physical release.

        His hands met the ground for only a moment, fingers streaming out in a gripping forest of skin and bone, and he swung his legs up like a double-belled pendulum, creasing the limbs from the last swath of hall over his body and onto the carpeting of the cramped foyer.  He remembered the girl he had first danced with, an innocent one at odds with the cruder women he had spent the rest of the night flirting with, and a grin crossed his face, encouraging his circus of pummeling feet with the well of adrenaline he shoved out into presence.  Clasping his hands together at his back, he swirled around in a dervish of kicking, legs striking up at sharp angles, and exhaled warmth in the cold.

        "God, she was nice," he smiled, lashing his foot out in a whipped cord hidden by dark cotton.

--

        He was carefully ladling an extension of the crimson sauce to pillow on top of the thousand interloping noodles, thin streaks of white that circled in on one another as an elaborate design of Italian cooking perfection, when the phone rang cold syllables of shrill noise, and he paused, holding the spiked utensil in his hand.  Shaking it with restrained strength, he tilted it onto the side, draining the sauce cradled in its smooth dip over the few noodles left untouched, and turned on his heel, the flannel cloth of his pajamas pinned beneath the calloused press of his foot's sole.  He tugged at the back knee of his pajama bottoms, raising his leg to assist his attempts to peel the cloth free of its clinging tightness, and crossed the floor quickly to the sink, padding along the pebbly tiles.  As the phone insistently rang, he rinsed the ladle quickly, gently under the whirlpool of water splashing from the faucet, wiggling it shiftily and studying the red-dripped water pouring through the angled sides, and Sanji knocked it against the side of the sink, a shower of faint droplets sprinkling down whilst he cut off the flow.

        Setting the ladle on the draining board, he rubbed his hands over the wrinkled apron lassoed about the pajamas' waistband and reached for the phone, impatiently striking aside the coiling wire tying phone to base.  "Speak," he stated bluntly, forgetting to use the Japanese that was of lower nature to him than English, and he followed it with, having few scruples over social etiquette, "Jinsei, you shit, you better have one hell of an excuse for skipping out and leaving me to deal with the apartment crap."

        The sound of his cousin laughing, a dry, humorless noise that irritated him further into the aggravated state of existence undoubtedly unhealthy for him, answered his flatly angry query, and he gritted his teeth, fingers of his other hand fumbling in the large front pocket of the apron drawn tight around him.  Pulling free a cigarette from the absently opened carton, he popped it between his teeth and chewed down, hard, channeling his aggression into the motion.  

        "I'm so glad to be talking to you, too," the voice said cruelly in perfect English, as he snatched up the lighter deposited on the counter and clipped it open, holding the light frantically to the end of his cigarette for the soothing nicotine.  "Trust me, I'm sorry I pissed you off by actually having a job, but I was called to Hokkaido and I won't be returning to Honshu for a week or so.  I thought I'd call and let you know I hope you didn't kill yourself by accident."

        Sanji spoke a particularly unpleasant curse involving a few choice expletives and a crude reference to intimate relations with a blender.

        "You goddamn," he gestured vaguely, frustrated, trying to find a word explosive and volatile enough to share his rage, and was finally able to snap, "eggplant!"  Before Jinsei had time to laugh in expected sarcastic laughter at the chosen insult, he continued to snap off, "I had to pay all the damn bills you left behind, dumbass, which took a helluva lot out of my paycheck, and I swear to God I am going to kill you if you do that again."

        "Of course, kamo," replied his cousin politely and he slammed the phone down onto the receiver, nearly biting clean through the tan butt of his cigarette as he wrinkled his nose furiously, eyebrows tilting dangerously.

        "Go to hell, you bastard!" he snarled to the cheerfully unresponsive phone, flexing his fingers around the sleek plastic as he harnessed the dissatisfied feeling currently pulsing in his mind, and he yanked the phone back from the base.  Swearing loudly and enthusiastically, he smashed it to the molded receiver, rearing his arm back several times and crashing it onto the base until his fury was suitably waived, and he let it tumble lazily to the waiting, abused plastic that was part of its design.  "Shit," he groaned, weaving his right hand through his blonde hair and scratching idly at the left side of his bangs, passing fingertips gingerly over his hidden eyebrow.

        He drummed slowly wearing fingers on the counter's angled edge and blew a noisy breath of air out in an upwards tilt, smacking his palm forcefully on the shined surface as he pulled back and calmly strolled to the abandoned dish of Italian food, snagging a chilled can of drink he had left on the counter.  Gripping both all but tenderly in his hands, one palm made red by the unheralded abuse he had used it for in punishment of the telephone, he picked a quick way over the clean, vacuumed floor to the small, cramped chair centered near the flat television hooked to the wall over a dark brown dresser.  The lanky blonde seated himself cautiously, one hand balancing under the plate to hold it in tentative place, the other wrapped securely around the dripping can, and relaxed a little toward the armchair's machine-pressed spine.

        "Thank God for the small things," he murmured to himself, tucking the can between his knees - or as close to between his knees as possible what with the way his obscene height folded itself up when he sat - and balancing the plate on his lap as he wielded a small fork previously tucked casually into the epicenter of the noodles.  Twisting the silver tines deep into the engulfing pool of stained ivory slips, he ducked his head forward briefly, lancing the spiraled fork into his mouth and rolling his lips so as to peel the spaghetti into his mouth, and he chewed quickly, flicking his eyes to the ceiling thoughtfully.  Swallowing, he nodded brusquely to himself, stabbing the noodles again with the fork as he tapped the slender length of his forefinger on the shaped metal.

        "Could've used a bit more basil in the sauce," he murmured, digging the tines further in, "and the tomato is a bit thick.  Damn!  Amateur mistakes, amateur mistakes."  He paused to work his jaw reflectively over the noodles and tipped his thumb over the end of his nose, nibbling at the tail noodle residing over the lower swell of his mouth in quietly placid wait before swiftly suctioning it onto his tongue and chewing it with grand ease.  Rocking his head to the side, he twisted his shoulder into a looping rise-and-fall circle to loosen the hovering tension gripping the muscles lining twixt bone and skin. 

        A frown tugged at his mouth as he considered something forgotten, his curly eyebrow tilting up as he slid down the worn cloth of the armchair, pinning fork between his teeth and clipping the cigarette free of his warm mouth, then taking the fork to place it on the plate.  He turned his elbow over the sagging chair's arm, three fingers clasping the can to palm and thumb as the other picked the cigarette firmly across the slick moistness around the aluminum metal of the same can, and blew smoke through a curved pursing of his lips as his eyes drifted shut.  The other hand played with the smooth edge of the plate's glazed surface and he nearly fell into a sudden, unexpected slumber at the filling laziness seeping at his limbs and mind with paralyzing warmth.

        "Nah!" cried Sanji to himself, snapping his pale blue eyes open and straightening quickly, and he tucked the can into a slumped slouch beside him as he flipped the cigarette about in an opposing direction.  Crushing the smoldering tip between his fingers, he winced slightly at the explosive heat and merely flicked the vice away into a small trashcan near the chair, shaking his shoulders and lifting the can, popping the tab efficiently.  "Can't go to sleep," he said stubbornly, taking a deep swig of the soda and stretching his legs strongly into the air before him as the plate balanced dangerously across his thighs.  "I am a young, healthy individual.  God, did this go flat?"  He studied the soda with a wrinkled expression and dubious downward twitch of his one visible eye.

        "Oh, of course," he commented gleefully to the empty apartment, downing another hefty sip of his drink anyway, "I forgot my angelic love!  What am I, turning into the Hulk?"  He paused for a moment of introspection, sipping with great sincerity at his drink.  "Although, all three personalities of him got Betty Ross, so…uh-hnn."  Striking his partnering hand to the side of his head, he rolled his eyes and swallowed another gulp of soda, patting fingertips across the dripping surface of the soda can and absently taking another strong bite of his self-prepared dinner.

        "Anyway, I'm losing perspective here," his seen eye closed philosophically, drink held at odds with his body as the forefinger peeled from the can's sleek surface to jab intellectually into the air, "which is so very unintelligent.  How suave can I be if I must continually speak of such embarrassing things?"  His eye cracked open, the strong eyelid lidded fractionally, and he admitted sheepishly to himself, turning his chin down and lowering his finger slowly back to the can, "Even if I do like them."

        Clearing his throat, he took a draught of the drink and paused, a hesitant look crossing his face as he stared, lost, at the wall clearly, proudly opposing him with a blank solitude.

        "I seem to have forgotten what I was doing," he told the wall, sipping emptily at the can as his eyebrow twisted even further up.

--

        Sunlight pierced the folded skin of his eyelid sharply, lightly wiggling its way into prominence along his hidden blue eye, and he grimaced, stretching his long limbs out and wincing when his feet unceremoniously slid off the far too short end of his cot bed.  He could never understand how the Japanese people managed to sleep in such massively uncomfortable beds, though he supposed the fact that he was a good two feet taller than most Japanese people might be a considerable factor in his discomfort.  In any case, he woke up in a pouty mood, lazily sitting up and hunching slightly as he blinked his eyes in discord, trying to capture a momentary flicker of anything other than weary apathy and bunching his hands together.  "Damn sun," he finally managed to get out, twisting his neck quickly to pop out the kinks before swinging his legs over the side of the bed next to him after taking a moment to carefully extract the bedspread from his lengthy shins.

        Sanji worked his arms to the side, lapsing his fingers together behind his head as his revealed eye closed thoughtfully, or more likely sleepily, and he stretched his arms back and up, arching back to tug at the muscles in his torso and upper legs.  Almost immediately, he collapsed back into a marginally hunched sit, rubbing one hand at the soft outcropping of hairs along the contour of his chin, and he gripped the palm of his hand along the soft cloth of the sheets.  "Something's hovering on the edge of my mind," he murmured, perplexed and miffed that he could not claim the thought, "and I have no idea what the damned hell it is.  Shit, I hope it's not important."

        His eye snapped open and he gaped, simultaneously angry and horrified as he repeated somewhat more passionately, "Shit!  It is important!  Damn it, morning shift, where the hell are my jeans?"  He launched up from the bed, glancing wildly around for the cloth he needed to exchange his pajama bottoms for.  

        "I swear to God!" he swore.  "How could my life get the hell worse?"

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**Notes:**  How indeed.  :]  I told ya'll it was short, and I apologize.  Real quick, I have a translation note – _kamo _is Japanese for (wild) duck, as opposed to _ahiru_, which is (domestic) duck.  I won't tell you who Jinsei, his cousin, is, but it'll be important in the future; you might note he called Sanji 'kamo' in their phone conversation.  When asked what animals the various characters in One Piece could be, Eiichiro Oda sagely replied in the Q&A section that Sanji would be a duck.  Don't ask me, I'm only going by what he said.  ;]

**Feedback:**  Give to Zim!

**Disclaimer:**  I'm torn between laughing maniacally or sobbing hysterically.

**Thanks:**  _Yami Nocturna, _I've just realized my fanfic isn't a romance anymore – it's comedy (with romance being the ultimate goal).  Unexpected, no?  Or maybe that's just me…and, yes, there are lots of people on-line who have similar names (although I still insist I was the first PallaPalla…even though I technically don't use it anymore).  _Devils Little Doll, many thanks, ma'am.  I liked writing Mamoru and Usagi (more so than I would have expected a year ago, when I loathed him irrationally – why did I ever hate him?).  Have fun victimizing people!  __The Misfit Dragon, *sobbing*!  I'm trying to work on __Requiem, I really am!  But, argh, I have so many new fics I'm trying to work on…this, my Treasure Planet fanfic, Jackie Chan Adventures, straight-up One Piece, Trigun…you know what this means, right?  Burnout, coming soon!  ^.-;  _Reihn Midnite, _sometimes ff.net has a momentary glitch…I've posted reviews before that ultimately weren't posted for whatever reason (how and why I'm not yet sure of).  I've found I like Mamoru (preferably manga Mamoru, though post-SMR Mamoru is better in the anime).  __Dee-Chan, matchmakin' be a worthy way to spend yer time, argh!  (Heh – I loved Treasure Planet just a bit much, can ye tell?)  And plotting – plotting is good.  Too bad I don't have the attention span for it…*sweatdrops*  __SailorPikaAngel, mwahahahaha!  I feel omnipotent and powerful (which is really, really alarming).  Ah, and Mamoru is one of Ami's close friends (as well as the cats, who I've been shortchanging and will be writing more of), and I don't think he was trying to insult or make fun of her with the "dating is evil" thing – she says, on a few occasions, similar things in the manga (and she isn't, of course, saying love is evil – just that she doesn't have the time or patience for it).  :]_

**Extra:  **I'll give five dollars to the first person who gets the Britney Spears song out of my head.


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